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In the film's prologue, a hotelier ushers a child into a bomb shelter during the Liverpool Blitz. We see a brief flashback to a woman leaving her baby in a basement surrounded by flickering candles. Before departing from the house, she quickly drops a string of pearls on the child's pillow, twined around a single rose. Years later, 16-year-old Stella Bradshaw lives in a working class household with her Uncle Vernon and Aunt Lily in Liverpool. Lacking an adult in her life to whom she feels close, she frequently goes into phone booths to "speak with her mother", who never appears in the film. Her uncle, who sees a theatrical career as being her only alternative to working behind the counter at Woolworth's, signs her up for speech lessons and pulls strings to get her involved at a local repertory theatre. After an unsuccessful audition, Stella gets a job gofering for Meredith Potter, the troupe's sleazy, eccentric director, and Bunny, his faithful stage manager. The impressionable Stella develops a crush on the worldly, self-absorbed Meredith, whose homosexuality completely eludes her. Amused, he gives her the small role of Ptolemy the boy-king in Caesar and Cleopatra but ignores her otherwise. Meredith reveals himself to be an amoral, apathetic man who treats Stella and everyone else around him with scorn and condescension. He reserves his greatest cruelty for Dawn Allenby, a desperate older actress whom he callously dismisses from the company; she later attempts suicide. Meredith also has a long history of preying upon young men. Stella is quickly caught up in the backstage intrigue and also becomes an object of sexual advances from men in and around the theatre company, including P. L. O'Hara (Alan Rickman), a brilliant actor who has returned to the troupe in a stint playing Captain Hook for its Christmas production of Peter Pan. In keeping with theatrical tradition, O'Hara also doubles as Mr. Darling. O'Hara carries himself with grace and charisma, but privately is as troubled and disillusioned as the other members of the cast. Haunted by his wartime experiences and a lost love who he believes bore him a son, O'Hara embarks on an affair with Stella, to whom he feels an inexplicably deep emotional connection. Stella, who is still determined to win over Meredith, remains emotionally detached, but takes advantage of O'Hara's affections, seeing an opportunity to gain sexual experience. The last straw for Stella is during a cast outing when Geoffrey, a fellow teenage stagehand whom Potter has been sexually toying with, bursts out and hits him in the nose. The cast rushes to comfort Geoffrey, but Stella exclaims that he ought to be sacked. O'Hara explains to her that Meredith has spent his life harming people like Geoffrey and causing pain to people like Bunny who really love him: "believe it or not, it doesn't much matter him or her, old or young to Meredith. What he wants is hearts." Concerned, O'Hara visits her aunt and uncle, who disclose Stella's history. He finds out that Stella's long-missing mother was his lost love, whom he then knew by the nickname Stella Maris, making Stella ⁠— whom he's been sleeping with ⁠— his child, a daughter rather than the son he had imagined. Keeping his discovery to himself, O'Hara gets on his motorcycle and drives back out to the seaport. He distractedly slips on the wet gangplank, hits his head, and is pitched into the water. Before he drowns, he sees the woman from earlier flashbacks, clutching the infant. Stella is later seen hastening to the phone booth to confide her woes over the phone. The absent Stella Maris had years ago won a nationwide contest to be the voice of the speaking clock. It is her recorded voice that provides the only response to her daughter's confidences. 

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Zara (Aileen Pringle) is a gypsy rogue who joins with Confederate Zazarack (Mitchell Lewis) to aid Michael Nash (Conway Tearle), the crooked guardian of heiress Doris Merrick (Gladys Hulette), to gain control of her estate by way of fake seances. He tries to convince her that her dead father is telling her to give all of her worldly possessions to the phony spitualists. 

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Recount chronicles the 2000 U.S. presidential election Bush v. Gore case between Governor of Texas George W. Bush and U.S. Vice President Al Gore. It begins with the election on November 7 and ends with the Supreme Court ruling, which stopped the Florida election recount on December 12. Key points depicted include: Gore's retraction of his personal telephone concession to Bush in the early hours of November 8; the decision by the Gore campaign to sue for hand recounts in Democratic strongholds where voting irregularities were alleged, especially in light of the statistical dead heat revealed by the reported machine recount; Republican pressure on Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris in light of her legally mandated responsibilities; the attention focused on the hand recounts by media, parties, and the public; the two major announcements by Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters extending the deadline for returns in the initial recount (November 21, 2000) and ordering a statewide recount of votes (December 8, 2000), and later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court; and finally the adversarial postures of the Supreme Courts of Florida and the United States, as well as the dissenting opinions among the higher court's justices. 

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Two young men, Dingding and Pateh, travel by ship from a rural village to the main city. Pateh is outgoing and reckless, with an eye for the ladies. Dinding is socially cautious, but sensible and possessing of business acumen. In the city, Dinding meets a young man, older than himself but not yet middle-aged, named James. James is a Christian and a very serious person. He becomes a major influence on Dingding. Pateh gets a job on the loading docks, and seduces a young girl named Isatou. Pateh is fond of fine and showy clothes. To maintain his clothing budget and his schedule with the ladies, Pateh begins working as a smuggler. Later, Isatou marries Charles, an old man who had never married before. He is the cousin of a Signare. Isatou does not feel close to Charles. After their marriage, Isatou finds herself pregnant with Pateh's child. The pair chooses to flee to Senegal. Dingding continues to prosper in business, and Pateh goes to work for Dinding. Pateh and Isatou become parents. While the child is still an infant, a French colonial policeman confronts Pateh with evidence of Pateh's criminal activities. Pateh sets the evidence on fire. During a fight with the policeman, the officer strikes a mortal blow. Pateh dies with his family by his side. Category:1986 novels Category:Novels set in the Gambia Category:Gambian novels Category:Fiction set in the 1930s 

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The novel is set in the American Northwest. The main character is Mackenzie Allen Phillips, a father of five called "Mack" by his family and friends. Four years prior to the main events of the story, Mack takes three of his children on a camping trip to Wallowa Lake near Joseph, Oregon, stopping at Multnomah Falls on the way. Two of his children are playing in a canoe when it flips and almost drowns Mack's son. Mack is able to save his son by rushing to the water and freeing him from the canoe's webbing but unintentionally leaves his youngest daughter Missy alone at their campsite. After Mack returns, he sees that Missy is missing. The police are called, and the family discovers that Missy has been abducted and murdered by a serial killer known as the "Little Ladykiller". The police find an abandoned shack in the woods where Missy was taken. Her bloodied clothing is found, but her body is not located. Mack's life sinks into what he calls "The Great Sadness". As the novel begins, Mack receives a note in his mailbox from "Papa", saying that he would like to meet with Mack that coming weekend at the shack. Mack is puzzled by the note—he has had no relationship with his abusive father since he left home at age 13. He suspects that the note may be from God whom his wife Nan refers to as "Papa". Mack's family leaves to visit relatives and he goes alone to the shack, unsure of what he will see there. He arrives and initially finds nothing, but as he is leaving, the shack and its surroundings are supernaturally transformed into a lush and inviting scene. He enters the shack and encounters manifestations of the three persons of the Trinity. God the Father takes the form of an African American woman who calls herself Elousia and Papa; Jesus is a Middle Eastern carpenter; and the Holy Spirit physically manifests as an Asian woman named Sarayu. The bulk of the book narrates Mack's conversations with Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu as he comes to terms with Missy's death and his relationship with the three of them. Mack also has various experiences with each of them. Mack walks across a lake with Jesus, sees an image of his (Earthly) father in Heaven with Sarayu, and has a conversation with Sophia, the personification of God's wisdom. At the end of his visit, Mack goes on a hike with Papa, now appearing as an older Native American male, who shows him where Missy's body was left in a cave. After spending the weekend at the shack, Mack leaves and is so preoccupied with his thoughts that he is nearly killed in an automobile accident. After his recovery, he realizes that he did not in fact spend the weekend at the shack, but that his accident occurred on the same day that he arrived at the shack. He also leads the police to the cave that Papa revealed, and they find Missy's body still lying there. With the help of forensic evidence discovered at the scene, the Little Ladykiller is arrested and put on trial. 

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Wilfred Mulliner, the inventor of Mulliner's Magic Marvels, a set or creams and lotions that help "alleviate the many ills to which the flesh is heir", falls in love with Angela Purdue and recommends Mulliner's Raven Gypsy Face- Cream to help her keep her sunburn on. Angela fears that her guardian, Sir Jasper ffinch-ffarrowmere, will not approve of the marriage and her fears seem to be realized when the guardian arrives at Wilfred's home with a message from Angela calling the engagement off. Wilfred suspects the work of the dastardly baronet and being a man of action sets forth for Yorkshire where the baronet lives at ffinch Hall and, while wandering around the grounds at night, he hears a woman sobbing. Within a week, Wilfred enters the house as a valet (he bribes Sir Jasper's valet and replaces him as his cousin) disguised in a red wig and blue spectacles. Soon after entering the house he follows Sir Jasper carry a tray of food to a room at the top of the house. Convinced that Angela is being held in the room against her will, he resolves to rescue her but is unable to find a key in the baronet's room and has no idea how to get hold of it. Over the next few days, he worries, loses weight, and Sir Jasper, who has a weight problem of his own (he can't lose it) decides to get an indoor Turkish cabinet bath inside which he gets stuck. "First, I must have the key." Wilfred demands the key to Angela's room as the price for releasing the baronet. "Give me the key, you Fiend," he cries. "ffiend," corrects Sir Jasper, automatically. To Wilfred's surprise, it turns out that the key is not with the baronet but with Angela. She refuses to let him in because his suntan cream has turned her piebald. To cut a long story short, Mulliner's Snow of the Mountains Lotion fixes the piebald-ness, Mulliner's Reduc-O takes care of Sir Jasper's weight problem, Mulliner's Ease-o relieves the butler's lumbago, and everyone lives happily ever after. 

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After an incident where he used questionable police tactics, Jeff Powers (Lou Diamond Phillips) is placed on probation. Upon hearing of his probation, a friend from the force later invites Jeff to join the Special Investigation Section, an elite and highly secretive LAPD unit designed to track and shut down high profile criminals. Jeff discovers that the group is actually a group of rogue cops who actually function like an unofficially sanctioned death squad and are given wide latitude when it comes to dealing with criminals. Although their official mission is to surveil criminals and arrest them in the act of committing a crime, the squad often resorts to brutality and murder to dispatch the subjects they are supposed to arrest. Jeff questions the purpose of the squad and begins to see them as more of a harm to society than a positive force for justice. When he tries to bring evidence of the squad's abuse of power, he learns that the squad is protected by well-connected and very influential people who already know and condone the squad's methods. Jeff's former teammates in the squad begin to suspect that Jeff has turned on them and decide to take measures to eliminate him before he can expose their activities to the public. 

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On the death of their father Lars, a retired Professor of History, Erik Davidsen and his sister Inga, a philosopher, clean out his home office in rural Minnesota and, while going through his copious papers, find a cryptic note written and signed by someone they do not know called Lisa which suggests to them that as a boy back in the 1930s their father was involved in some illicit act and that he has kept his promise never to tell anyone about it. The siblings decide to investigate the matter further, if only half-heartedly at first. For the time being, Erik Davidsen is preoccupied reading his father's journals, which the latter completed only shortly before his demise. For Erik, all this will mean that in the months to come he will not only be haunted by the ghosts of the present but also of the past. It has been pointed out that none of the characters in The Sorrows of an American leads a carefree, untroubled existence.Susan Salter Reynolds: "The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt", The Los Angeles Times (April 6, 2008).Margot Kaminski: "Review: Hustvedt's Sorrows", The San Francisco Chronicle (April 10, 2008) E-5. The narrator himself suffers from a slight form of depression triggered by his recent divorce, childless state, and subsequent feeling of loneliness but still finds satisfaction in attempting to cure his patients of the complaints he occasionally recognizes in himself. His sister Inga has had absence seizures from childhood and migraines all her adult life. What is more, when the novel opens she is being harassed by a female journalist who states her intention to publicize hitherto unknown facts about Inga's deceased husband, a cult author and filmmaker, and who demands that she be co-operative without telling her what exactly she is aiming at or planning to do. Inga's 18-year-old daughter Sonia suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder, having witnessed, from the windows of her Manhattan school, the September 11, 2001 attacks and the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Lars Davidsen, the long-term patriarch of the family, was a fugueur. But also the characters outside the family show neurological symptoms. Whereas the journalist who is harassing Inga only bears an age-old personal grudge against her (of which the latter is unaware) and is out for straightforward revenge, Erik's friend and colleague Bernard Burton, apart from sweating excessively, has not been able to cope with the fact that Inga is not in love with him and, without her realizing it, has kept a watchful eye on her over the years in a way which might be construed as stalking. Edie Bly, a former actress who is now impoverished, is a recovering substance abuser who has an illegitimate son by Inga's deceased husband and appears to be in an unstable psychological condition. Finally, the real stalker in the novel, a photographer and installation artist called Jeffrey Lane, displays various signs of compulsive behaviour, for example the urge to document virtually everything in his life by taking photos. He crosses the psychiatrist's path while pursuing his former girlfriend, a Jamaican-born beauty who has recently rented, and moved into, the downstairs apartment of Erik's now too large Brooklyn brownstone. Erik Davidsen is immediately drawn towards Miranda, the young woman from Jamaica, and Eglantine, her pre-school daughter by Jeffrey Lane. He soon falls head over heels in love with the dark-skinned woman while at the same time watching what he perceives to be the slow but steady deterioration of his own self. Gently rejected by Miranda, he has enough willpower left to go on a date with a sexy colleague and, for purely physical reasons, starts an affair with her. As the story progresses, however, he is more and more pulled into the quagmire of events surrounding Miranda, Inga, and himself. At one point he catches a burglar in his empty house at night, is surprised to see it is Lane, confused when the escaping Lane takes a photo of him wearing nothing much but wielding a hammer, and shocked when, months later, he recognizes the image at one of Lane's exhibitions with a caption saying, Head Doctor Goes Insane. Most of the mysteries are cleared up in the end. Erik and Inga succeed in tracking down the mysterious -- and now dying -- Lisa, and it turns out that all those years ago a young Lars Davidsen helped her bury her illegitimate, stillborn child, in all secrecy, somewhere on his family's farm. The reputation of Inga's deceased husband is not smeared either when the existence of a batch of letters to Edie Bly can be established without doubt but when it turns out at the same time that they have no sensational value because they belong to the realm of fiction--they are addressed to the character Bly played in one of the author's films rather than Bly the actress and mother of his child. Bernard Burton proves instrumental in procuring the letters without succumbing to the temptation to actually read them, in a chivalric act in which he dresses up as a frightful bag lady in order not to reveal his identity, a scene which also provides some comic relief. The conclusion of the novel is a four-page stream- of-consciousness-like recapitulation of the story's images racing through Erik's mind, and the assurance that the characters' fragmented lives will remain that way. 

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During a trip to Las Vegas with his best friend, gambler Sing Wong (Jonathan Ke Quan) loses all his money. The pair learn about Ren Lee (Ekin Cheng), a man who controls a way of going back in time, from a young woman. Both his best friend and the woman die in a car accident. Sing is the sole survivor. Sing, now pursued by policewoman Tina Chow (Cecilia Cheung), is led by Ren Lee through various parallel universes and in this process he not only changes himself and saves his friend's life but also falls in love with Tina. 

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When the death of a well-known TV star, Annabelle (Katey Sagal), is reported, the CSI team is sent to investigate. Annabelle's co-star, Megan, is interviewed, saying what a tragedy it was. Warrick points out to Grissom and Catherine that a woman's high heel print can clearly be seen in the blood from Annabelle's room. When Grissom gets a phone call that something has turned up on the television set, he heads to Los Angeles. When Grissom arrives, he finds Natasha (Annabelle's stand-in/double), dead from a car accident. Minutes later, Megan screams out as her dog lies dead in front of her. Back in Vegas, Hodges shows Catherine footage of Bud Parker (Annabelle's driver and now the show's "executive producer") marrying Annabelle, that is actually Natasha. Grissom and Brass search Bud's office and find alcohol, which he has been giving to Annabelle. They also let him know that semen was found on Natasha before she died, trying to pin her murder on him. Bud does not answer any questions, but instead is led away by police until he is ready to talk. Catherine finds out that a writer visited Annabelle's room and had the same water bottle on him that she found at the scene of the crime. That writer has not been seen since the show filmed in Vegas. The bottle is dusted for prints and the CSI team come up with the name Richard Langford, an actor and street performer. As the team hands out pictures on the street to find him, Richard is performing on the street as a robot and tries to get away. Warrick and Nick arrest him. Nick interviews Richard, who says that he was going to become a regular on her sitcom but was dismissed when he refused to sleep with Annabelle. He went to Vegas to get a second chance and decided to sleep with her after all. She fell backwards, hit her head, and died, which was an accident, according to him. He says that the rubber chicken stuffed down her throat was not an accident, but intentional since she was already dead. The corpse of Annabelle tests positive for blood thinners, and the team realizes that she had been poisoned for quite some time prior to her death. The same drug is found in Natasha's blood. Grissom and Brass figure out that the only other person, besides Bud, who knew about Annabelle hiding her alcohol in mouthwash bottles was Megan. She confesses hypothetically by placing her actions on a fictional character in a script. In it, she reveals that she had had help from an Italian uncle, "Giuseppe," who taught her how to sabotage Annabelle's car in exchange for what she called "unsavory favors." She later asserts that there is only circumstantial evidence implicating her, and reveals that she has a new TV series called "Megan's Family." She then introduces her lover/executive producer, one of the show producers, who was constantly humiliated by Annabelle and Bud, who appears on cue. So with no proof, they do not arrest her. While shaving, Bud cuts himself and bleeds profusely from the neck as the screen cuts to black. 

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The novel is based on the stories of Katherine Mary O'Fallon Flannigan (1899-1954). According to her fictionalized account, in 1907 at age 16 O'Fallon travels to Calgary to visit her uncle and recover from pleurisy. There she meets and marries Mike Flannigan, a sergeant with the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, moving with him to isolated posts in the mountain and lake regions of British Columbia and northern Alberta (Lesser Slave Lake).. In the novel the Flannigans' two children die of diphtheria, and they adopt three orphaned children. 

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Art of the Devil tells the story of Boom (Supaksorn Chaimongkol), a young Thai girl who meets a married man named Prathan (Tin Settachoke) at a country club. The two soon begin an affair, and Boom finds herself pregnant. When she breaks the news to Prathan, he appears to settle for giving her a sum of money in exchange for her silence, reassuring her that he will not leave her. However, he then wakes her up in the middle of the night, informing her that for that large an amount of money, he had the right to share her. While Prathan wields a video camera, his friends chase a terrified and screaming Boom out of the room and onto the beach, where they apparently gang-rape her. After getting an ultrasound at the hospital, Boom shows up at the restaurant where Prathan's daughter is celebrating her birthday and informs him that the sum of money he had given her was not enough. He pulls her outside and hits her, tossing a wad of cash at her and warning her not to come near his family again. Furious, Boom enlists the aid of a black magic user to exact revenge on her ex-lover and his entire family, notably causing the eldest son to shoot his girlfriend and his little sister before turning the gun on himself. After their deaths, Boom visits a temple and finds that if she donates coffins for the spirits, they will not bother her. She makes some offerings. While leaving the temple, she sees the ghosts of her victims in the back of a car and steps off of the sidewalk to get a better look, whereupon she is hit by a car. The accident causes her to lose her baby. Prathan's first wife inherits his fortune. She and her four children move into the house. Boom again uses black magic to kill this new family off. However, her motive this time is not for revenge, but in order to claim the inheritance. A young newspaper reporter becomes suspicious, so Boom arranges for his death, as well. Throughout this, the ghost of Boom's dead daughter is seen around the house. The story ends with only the youngest son and eldest daughter surviving the massacre. Boom voluntarily falls to her death from the roof of the hospital after seeing her daughter's ghost. 

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In 1934, Adam Crowley, an occultist and antagonist from the previous game, has created a vast race of mutant creatures, which he is using to wipe out a group of monster hunters called the Circle. Meanwhile, Herbert Wallace, a patient at Crowley's genetics hospital, escapes from captivity, armed with an axe. He arrives in London, where he discovers evidence of a picture of Ignatius Blackward, who in the previous game with Nadia Franciscus had defeated Crowley. In a fire, Wallace is rescued from it by Rachel, the only surviving member of the Circle. They head their separate ways, with Wallace venturing to Crowley's castle, only to discover that Crowley himself is not there, but he is in Paris. He then falls down a chute, which leads to a biplane that he flies to France. Wallace enters a cinema, where he finds a note from Rachel informing him that she knows of Crowley's plans. He then proceeds onwards to a museum to meet up with Rachel, but unknown to Wallace, Rachel is captured by zombies. Wallace then enters the museum, where he finds a detailed blueprint of the Eiffel Tower, along with some of Crowley's plans. In a crypt which Wallace enters, he is attacked by zombies, escapes in a car, and crashes in an elaborate graveyard after getting assaulted by a zombie that hid in the back, where he finds a part of Rachel's shirt snagged on a tree. Wallace departs from the graveyard, and falls into a sewer, which in turn takes him to the Paris underground, where he finds evidence of documents of ancient cults, and leads to the Eiffel Tower. He then climbs to the top of the structure, where he finds a grotesque monstrosity. Using dynamite, he explodes the creature, only for the explosion to throw him off the top of the spire. However, his fall is cushioned, and he is reunited with Rachel, whereupon they walk away together. Whether Crowley is plotting his next scheme or gone forever is completely unknown. 

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The novel concerns Adam Thane, a soldier of fortune who fights for the woman he loves against the immortals of Ganymede. 

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During a football game in Washington, D.C., a terrorist makes a bomb threat to the DHS, stating that a bomb is in a stadium. Meanwhile, the family of DHS agent Mike Bookman (Arquette), are taken hostage. This brings out issues of suspect and trust amongst colleagues as the terrorist is suspected to be amongst them. 

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After filming a porn video and being ripped off by the producer (Arthur Roberts), India (Joe Lia) meets a street hustler. Moments later they are attacked by a pair of gay bashers. They split up and run and the bashers pursue India in their Jeep. They stop short at the sight of India standing next to Destiny (Allan Louis) a vigilante African American drag queen pointing a gun at them. Destiny vandalizes the Jeep and takes the coat from one of the bashers. Destiny invites the homeless India to live with her. There he meets Lester (Minerva Vier), a young lesbian and another of Destiny's "orphans." The next morning, upon learning that Destiny is a porn director India panics and plans to leave. He tells Destiny about being ripped off and she asks if he wants to kill the producer. He says yes, and that he wants to kill all straight people. India goes to the producer's home with a gun. He finds the producer and pulls the trigger, but the gun is not loaded. A few days later, as they discuss plans to foment the collapse of the straight world, Destiny, India and Lester meet Spencer (Lance Lee Davis), a graffiti artist and self-proclaimed "bomber," They immediately "adopt" him. After spending the night together, Spencer and India discover the basher's address inside his coat and decide they want to go bash him. As Destiny and her friend Matinee (Tara Nova) socialize in Destiny's car, Officer Vic Damone (Vince Parenti) comes to warn them that the police are on the lookout for roving bands of vigilante drag queens and to watch out for themselves. Destiny (realizing that Vic is attracted to her) advises him that they're already always watching out for themselves. Spencer and India are approached on the street by a photographer. As the pair pose together nude on a bed, Spencer recites a litany of injuries he has received at the hands of his parents and other straights. India tries to comfort him but Spencer says he no longer has feelings and doesn't let anyone in. India vows to protect him from the straights. The next morning, on the way to the basher's house, India discovers a detonator in Spencer's backpack. Spencer tells him that he plans to blow up his parents. India tries to dissuade him but Spencer is not convinced that bombing straights isn't the way to go. India and Spencer spot the basher in his neighborhood and argue over whether they should bash him as Spencer wants or try to "save" him as India wants. India has adopted Destiny's theory, that all gay bashers are themselves repressed gays who need to be saved. India returns the basher's jacket. The basher, Guy (Adam Larson), admits that he's gay. He packs his things and tells the other basher, his roommate Quentin (Josh Paul) that he's gay, he loves him and believes Quentin loves him too. Quentin has a gun to his head, contemplating suicide, but is interrupted by his brother. Quentin angrily acknowledges that he is gay and drives away. Destiny tells Vic she's in love with him and Vic tells Destiny he's in love with her too. As Vic leaves for work, he passes India, Spencer and Guy with his gun pointed in their general direction. They confront Destiny about being involved with a cop, until Destiny realizes who Guy is and orders him out. India and Spencer threaten to leave with him, but Guy agrees to go. India appeals to Destiny and she relents. India and Spencer chase after him but can't find him. Meanwhile, Guy returnes to the apartment and apologizes for attacking them. Destiny accepts him and Lester nicknames him "Killer." India wants to make plans for the evening with Spencer but Spencer already has plans, to blow up his parents. India begs him not to go, saying that he won't come back from it. Destiny interrupts another gay bashing. The basher strikes her with a baseball bat and Destiny shoots him. Later, Vic comforts her and Destiny tells him he has to be careful around her kids. They all have "police stories." Quentin, in response to a message from Guy, arrives at Destiny's apartment, where he finds Guy in bed with India and Spencer. Quentin orders him to come away with him, giving him the choice of "straight or dead." The boys argue that Quentin is in love with Guy and Quentin breaks down, admitting how much in love with Guy he is. Quentin again points the gun at his own head but Guy stops him and they kiss. India appeals again to Spencer not to blow up his parents. He says that if Spencer really wants to kill them, he will help, but if Spencer really wants to blow them away, he will stay with India. "All we have to do is kiss, because when two guys kiss it's like a bomb going off in the straight world. Our kisses are louder than bombs." Spencer admits that he has fallen in love with India but is terrified because he's losing control. But he also feels safe, like he's home. India tells him that wherever they are, as long as they are together they're home. They kiss, and with each kiss they call out a target that their kiss has destroyed like a bomb, finally declaring that they will blow up the whole straight world. 

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Dreamtime is the story of a woman, a man and the power of love and dreams. A narrator introduces the characters in the story. The narrator is a voice and a vision which appears throughout the story in many forms. The character of “The Woman” represents all women. The character of “The Man” represents all men. “The Collector” is an omnipotent character who speaks through “The Witness” and gives the gift of “The Friend”. “The Collector” urges the audience to take a journey. He explains that many people live a lifetime and never realize their dreams. He asks that the audience travel into “Dreamtime” and help “the Women” and “The Man” to find their dream in one evening. “The Collector” warns the chorus and the audience to beware of “The Chief” who only sees life in black and white and wants people to only to dream while they sleep but not to pursue dreams in their daily life. In the beginning of the show, the loneliness of “The Woman” and the longing of “The Man” are heard through their music. “The Man” is tempted by a fan and dreams of love. He is given the gift of friendship and with the help of the audience sees the love of “the Women” The audience is videotaped upon entering the theater and are incorporated into the projections during the finale hence, the cast and the audience become One. 

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Lorena and Sara were raised together in an orphanage, and even though they have different personalities, they loved each other as sisters. Lorena dreams of starting her own family and loves to cook, while Sara is more materialistic; she has always hated the poverty of the orphanage, and she has more ambitions than values. Lorena's greatest wish is to become a chef and so, one day she says goodbye to the nuns who raised her at the orphanage and leaves to study cuisine in Mexico City. That same day, Madre Asunción discovers that Sara had stolen some of the funds of the orphanage. However, after she confronts Sara, she suffers a heart attack and dies. To avoid getting caught any further, Sara runs with her lover and accomplice Chalo, who is also the delivery guy/driver of the orphanage. But before she leaves, she goes through the files Madre Asunción had in her office for each orphaned child and stole two files – hers and Lorena's. When she finally reads them, she learns that she was found in the garbage dump, while Lorena was abandoned in the orphanage without explanation by her grandmother, the millionaire Hortensia Vallejo Vda. de Armendáriz. Sara's first impulse is to find Lorena and help her confront her grandmother and demand her rights, but then she reconsiders her options and decides to usurp her place in the Armendáriz gastronomic empire. Believing she would never see Lorena again, Sara thought her plan was foolproof. Unaware of what happened, Lorena finds work as a cook's aid in her own grandmother's company – a lady who is ruthless in her work area and demands perfection from all her workers. Lorena also meets a young doctor called Alonso and they fall in love with each other at first sight. Later on, Sara has an unexpected reunion with Lorena in the company and the girl's constant presence infuriates her and feels that if Lorena were to ever know the truth of her past she may want to reclaim what is truly hers and she would be once again poor. So Sara's mind betrays her and she is gradually overwhelmed by a desire to take everything away from Lorena, including Alonso, and get rid of her once and for all. When Lorena learns that Sara was abandoned by her grandmother, she cries for her friend and is filled with contempt for Hortensia. Meanwhile, Hortensia uses all her resources to avoid confronting the pain she has caused to everyone around her. Eventually, Sara managed to take away everything that belonged to Lorena, her life, her love and even her parents who for a while believed Sara to be their long lost daughter. When Lorena starts to discover Sara's evil machinations against her, she realizes that she never truly knew the one she loved as a sister. But in spite of her broken heart, she will bravely face betrayal, deceit and cruelty and even find a new hope with someone she never expected to love – Ernesto, a man who at first glance seemed the total opposite of who she was. She never dreamed that they would have something special between them, but Ernesto managed to convince her otherwise. Slowly he reconstructs Lorena's broken heart, healing it with his love for her and showing her to love and trust someone else again. 

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The plot of Welcome to the Jungle concerns two young couples who go to Southwest New Guinea from Fiji in order to find Michael Rockefeller, the son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller who disappeared back in 1961, and sell an interview with him to the tabloids for $1,000,000. After a close encounter with armed criminals and psychopathic border guards, and after finding evidence that suggests that Michael Rockefeller may still be alive, the group finally makes it to the jungle where Rockefeller was last seen. The group ventures deep into the jungle where they find two Christian missionaries and a middle-aged Australian man who warns the group not to disturb the tribes in the area or else they will be killed. However tensions rise between the two couples which ultimately attracts the attention of local bloodthirsty cannibalistic tribes who then stalk one of the young couples while they are on a makeshift boat in the river and then attack them when they make their way to shore. Meanwhile, the next morning the other couple realizes that most of their essential belongings are missing, and they fear that the other couple took their items and went on ahead to find and interview Rockefeller without them. They then decide to go find their friends but end up finding blood and bits of their clothing on the shore where they were kidnapped. Fearing for their welfare the two go deep into the jungle and later that day find the body of the woman of the other couple. Later that night they find half-eaten bodies of the Christian missionaries whom they met earlier and then find their male friend whose legs and arms have been eaten off; they decide to kill him and escape. After escaping from the cannibals, the young couple come across a seemingly friendlier non-cannibalistic tribe who invites them to their village and provides them with food to eat. The couple then talks about what they are going to do with their lives after they escape, but their conversation is cut short when the tribe who invited them knock the young couple unconscious and kill them while their portable camera carries on filming. Seconds later, an old man is seen walking away from the tribe. There is no information of who this old man could be, but there is a possibility that it could be Michael Rockefeller, who has been kept alive by the tribe since he was captured by them in 1961. 

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During the Battle of Sarikamish, the Ottoman army runs out of ammunition and appeals for help to the people of Van, who happen to have supplies. However, the First World War is on and all the men are fighting at the four corners of the empire and therefore can not respond to the appeal. The young children of Van want to do something and when the principal of a school, who has lost a son in the war, suggests that they transport ammunition, 120 young boys aged 12 to 17 volunteer and take to the road. The movie tells the true story of the 120 boys and their sisters and mothers left behind, who wait for their return. 

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12-year-old Wendy, a brave and kind girl, befriends wolf-husky mix White Fang. They share many adventures in Yukon's rugged Klondike territory during the Klondike Gold Rush where they encounter wolf packs, gold thieves, First Nations people, otters, poachers and treacherous avalanches. 

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First paperback edition of Tanar of Pellucidar The author's friend Jason Gridley is experimenting with a new radio frequency he dubs the Gridley Wave, via which he picks up a transmission sent by scientist Abner Perry, from the interior world of Pellucidar at the Earth's core, a realm discovered by the latter and his friend David Innes many years before. There Innes and Perry have established an Empire of Pellucidar, actually a confederation of tribes, and attempted with mixed success to modernize the stone-age natives. Lately things have not gone well, and Innes is currently held captive in an enemy realm. Perry transmits a lengthy account of how this has come about, as reported by Innes's native comrade in arms Tanar, and appeals for aid from the outer world. Tanar's narrative comprises the bulk of the novel. Innes had led an army to the relief of the member tribe of Thuria and the remnants of the Empire's former foes, the reptilian Mahars. Both had been attacked by a previously unknown people, the Korsars (corsairs), the scourge of the internal seas. These, it is eventually learned, are the descendants of outer world Moorish pirates who had penetrated Pellucidar centuries before through a natural polar opening connecting the outer and inner worlds. The empire's forces succeed in repulsing the Korsars, but the raiders retain as hostage Tanar, son of Innes’ ally Ghak of Sari. They hope to trade him for the secret of the empire's superior weaponry. Leaving his forces to construct ships to counter the enemy fleet, Innes and his comrade Ja of Anoroc set out alone to rescue Tanar, guided by their own prisoner, the Korsar Fitt. On the enemy flagship Tanar is interrogated by the Cid, leader of the Korsars, and his ugly henchman Bohar the Bloody. The young warrior also encounters Stellara, supposedly the Cid's daughter, who attempts to intercede on behalf of Tanar and his fellow captives. A storm destroys the ship, and the crew takes to the lifeboats, leaving Tanar and Stellara adrift on the wreckage. Stellara confides to him that she is not really a Korsar, as her mother Allara was stolen by the Cid from the native island of Amiocap and she bears a birthmark proving she is actually the daughter of Fedol, her mother's former mate. Eventually the derelict ship drifts to Amiocap itself, but the island's suspicious inhabitants take the two for Korsar spies and imprison them in the village of Lar. Escaping, they by chance encounter Fedol, who recognizes Stellara by her birthmark and gives them refuge in his own village of Peraht. But Bohar's group of Korsars attacks Peraht and kidnaps Stellara, while Tanar falls prey to the Coripies, a cannibalistic subterranean race. Escaping again, Tanar kills Bohar and frees Stellara, to whom he avows his love. Their joy is short-lived, as she is then abducted by Jude of the nearby island of Hime, who had shared Tanar's captivity among the Coripies. Tanar pursues them to Hime, where they are overtaken by Bohar's crew. Seeing Tanar with Gura, a girl of Hime who has developed a crush on him, Stellara rejects him and reassumes her former role among the Korsars; Tanar and Gura are taken in chains across the ocean to the Korsar city. There Tanar finds himself a fellow prisoner with David Innes and Ja of Anoroc, whose quest to succor him has miscarried. The three feign acquiescence to the Cid's demand they manufacture modern firearms for him, and so are given greater liberty. Meanwhile, Gura has discovered that Stellara, despite her jealous anger, still loves Tanar, and lets Tanar know. The party plans its escape and flees north with the reconciled Stellara. After confirming the existence of the polar opening they turn south again, bound for Sari, only to encounter a large party of pursuing Korsars, at which they split up in an attempt to ensure some at least can carry word back to the empire. Stellara, Tanar and Innes are recaptured, and the latter two each confined solitarily in lightless, snake- infested cells. Tanar, in his cell, eventually locates the opening through which the snakes enter, widens it, and achieves freedom. He locates Stellara in a heated faceoff with Bulf, the Korsar to whom the Cid has promised her; she swears to kill him and herself both rather than submit. Tanar intervenes and dispatches Bulf. He and his lover then leave the city in Korsar guise, and after many perils return to Sari, where they find Ja and Gura to have arrived safely as well. After hearing the complete transmission, Jason Gridley pledges to lead an expedition to Pellucidar through the polar opening and rescue David Innes, thus setting the stage for the sequel Tarzan at the Earth's Core, a cross-over novel linking Burroughs’ Pellucidar and Tarzan series. 

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Seven years after the death of Donnie Darko, a young man troubled by hallucinations about doomsday, his now 18-year- old sister Samantha Darko joins her best female friend Corey on a road trip from Virginia to California. When their car breaks down in a tiny Utah town, they are helped by the town "bad boy", Randy. The pair meet eccentric locals and learn that a local boy, Billy Moorcroft, has gone missing. Samantha is still struggling with her brother's death and is sleepwalking. While wandering, she meets a homeless veteran with PTSD named Justin (James Lafferty). As the pair sit atop a windmill, she tells him that the world will end soon, but he knows this already. The next morning she wakes up outside, and sees that a meteorite has crashed into the windmill. A series of mysterious encounters and events follows. A geeky guy, Jeremy (Jackson Rathbone), is interested in buying the meteorite, and chats with Samantha. Randy tells of how he misses his younger brother who has disappeared and is feared dead. During a strange episode, Samantha takes Justin to the local church and commands him to burn it. The next day, police find Justin's dog tags in the ashes. Samantha meets Jeremy, who is showing signs of radiation exposure from the meteorite. Justin is forging a bunny-skull mask to help "his princess." Samantha tells Corey she wants to get out of town but the two argue bitterly. Samantha runs away, and she is knocked down in a car crash. Anguished about her best friend's death, Corey goes through Samantha's effects, including a book about time travel and a story Samantha wrote as a child about a princess and a boy named Justin. After a strange boy commands Corey to come with him to save Samantha, she follows him to a cave into a portal that takes her back in time. Everything moves backwards to when Samantha is walking down the road. Corey and Randy drive up to Samantha again and Corey is nicer to her. This time, Corey is struck in a car crash. Samantha is devastated by Corey's death. After another sleepwalking incident, she sees a dress in a shop window that she knows from her sleepwalking visions. Samantha wakes up from sleepwalking and finds she is outside with Justin. He tells her the book about time travel was written by his grandmother and says that he made his bunny skull mask from a drawing by Samantha's deceased brother. Wandering, Samantha finds the bodies of two dead boys, Randy's little brother and the missing local boy who appeared to Corey, Billy Moorcroft. The townspeople assume that Justin is responsible for the deaths and police take him into custody. That night, Samantha gets the dress as a gift from Jeremy and he asks her on a date. On a hilltop, they see glowing tesseracts falling from the sky. He becomes manic and violent with Samantha, pushing her so hard that she falls and lies motionless. Samantha visits Justin in jail. Randy tries to find her as fiery tesseracts fall from the sky. Justin puts on his mask, which makes him go back in time. He climbs the windmill that was destroyed at the beginning. Justin believes that his death will prevent the series of events that will lead to the end of the world. He stays on the windmill and is killed by the meteorite. It is now the morning after the meteorite landing again. Samantha and Corey visit the site and find the locals are saddened as they take away Justin's body. Samantha, never having experienced the events after the meteorite crash, decides to go back home while Corey stays in the small town with Randy. 

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The land of Fenario, on the borders of Faerie (read:Dragaera) is ruled by King Laszlo, oldest of four brothers. Prince Andor, second son, is an indulgent man, unable to discover his place. Prince Vilmos, third son, is a giant, such as are occasionally born into the line of Fenarr. The youngest, Prince Miklos, is at the center of the story. The family makes their home in a four-hundred-year-old palace, which is crumbling away under their feet. The story concerns the destruction of their crumbling home, which serves as fulcrum around which many themes revolve. Desperation at things' ending, joy at new beginnings, and the way in which we choose to separate the two, are central themes of the novel. 

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It's several days before Christmas in 2012, and Sydney is in the midst of a water crisis. Despite the creation of a desalination plant, which NSW Premier Angela Boardman insists creates millions of litres of fresh water a day, the city is still under Level 8 water restrictions. The western suburbs especially are seriously dry. Ambitious CPN reporter Susan Shapiro launches an investigation into the crisis. Her report catches the attention of the Premier, who grants Shapiro an interview. Although Shapiro is amicable (perhaps too much so - her cameraman Teddy accuses her of turning into Oprah), she is still suspicious. And with good reason; later conversation between Boardman and her Chief of Staff Tom Daily reveal they are sharing a secret that could end both their careers. David Langmore, the State Operations Commander for the National Fire Service, is preparing dinner when he receives a call from Shapiro. He is angry that the reporter has called him at home and insists the water shortage has been caused solely by a lack of rain. ER doctor Michael Francia is enjoying some quiet time with his pregnant wife Lizzie when Emily, his daughter from a previous relationship, shows up on his door. She has had a fight with her mother and needs a place to stay, even though, as she later confesses to her stepmother Lizzie, she isn't sure if her father likes her. Meanwhile, a lightning storm forms over a national park in the western outskirts of Sydney. A bolt of lightning strikes a tree, which bursts into flames. The dry bushland quickly ignites. The next day at work, Dr Francia is frantically trying to attend to an influx of patients suffering dehydration and heat exhaustion. A courier truck, carrying dozens of gas cylinders, speeds into the hospital car park and a bloodied man is dragged into the hospital lobby. During the commotion that follows, the truck outside is forgotten about and unbeknownst to anyone, one of the cylinders begins to leak. David Langmore is monitoring the fires in the hopes that his team can prevent them from becoming fireheads. Volunteer firefighters, including David's son Brendan and Brendan's girlfriend Deanna, are sent out to control the blaze. Deanna and two other volunteers are overwhelmed by the size and ferocity of the flames and attempt to escape by car. Langmore and the rest of the workers in the control centre watch helplessly via closed circuit cameras as the fire consumes the car and the three perish. It becomes apparent that they have a crisis on hand. The Premier announces a state of emergency and Langmore calls a Section 44, enacting that section of the Rural Fires Act 1997 (NSW); the effect of which means all emergency workers in the area are now under his control. Police and firefighters struggle to fight the flames but are deterred by a lack of water and pressure in the hoses. Lizzie Francia receives a call from her invalid mother. Although Lizzie is concerned, she refuses Emily's offer to collect her mother from her nursing home. Emily sneaks away while Lizzie is dealing with a concerned neighbour. However, she encounters a detour and ends up driving close to the fire. She runs to escape the smoke but falls down a rocky hill and loses consciousness. Shapiro reports from the frontlines. When firefighters try to tap into a residential water tank, the elderly owner becomes incensed and has a heart attack. Shapiro and Teddy take the man to the hospital, where they meet Dr Francio. They encourage him to tell his wife to evacuate. Shapiro also meets the brother of one of Boardman's political opponents and discovers that she received a large, anonymous donation a month before the election. Francio calls his wife and urges her to evacuate. Mid- conversation, the leaking gas cylinder in the courier truck explodes. Francio miraculously survives, but several people in the hospital are injured. Lizzie, meanwhile, is forced to evacuate on foot. When she runs into Shapiro, Lizzie begs the reporter to take her two small children in the news helicopter. Shapiro agrees. Langmore meets with the Premier and insists that they use the water from the desalination plant. Boardman refuses his request. Reluctantly, they resort to using saltwater (which can cause irreparable damage to nature) and the blaze is eventually extinguished. Emily is found and receives medical attention. Francio rushes to be by her side and promises that he likes her 'with all (his) heart.' Upon hearing that over 300 people have died, Daily sends Shapiro a video text message. The video reveals that the Premier made a deal with Argon Energy that gave them unlimited fresh water in return for free power to the desalination plants and one million dollars. Shapiro and Teddy are killed when a factory she is reporting from explodes, releasing toxic gases; however, when Langmore checks his email later that afternoon, he finds a video message from the reporter, with the subject line, 'Guess what? Sometimes it isn't just about the weather.' Later, Boardman calls a press conference to discuss the tragic bushfires. Langmore attends. He asks her questions about the deal with Argon, which Boardman naturally denies. Langmore angrily calls her a liar and tells her that he has a video of their meeting. He gives members of the press copies of the video and Boardman flees the conference. In the final scene, Langmore visits Shapiro's grave. It is revealed that Boardman was forced to resign as premier and Shapiro received a posthumous Walkley Award for investigative journalism... and that, eight weeks after the tragedy, Sydney still hasn't received rain. 

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The series of short films has an all-dog cast (with human voiceovers) that recreate famous scenes from early musical films, particularly The Broadway Melody. The finale is a chorus line of dogs performing "Singin' in the Rain" spoofing Cliff Edwards's original version of the song in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. Also spoofed is Al Jolson's performance of "Mammy" in The Jazz Singer. This was a part of MGM's popular series of Dogville Comedies shorts directed by Zion Myers and Jules White. 

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Lady Boss tells the story of Lucky Santangelo taking over a movie studio in Hollywood called "Panther Studios." 

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The story focuses on the character Anthony Bonar (Enzio Bonatti's grandson), who is seeking revenge against the Santangelo family as Lucky Santangelo is responsible for the deaths of his grandfather and father. Lucky's daughter - the rebellious teenager Maria, also known as "Max" - is arranging to meet up with a mysterious boy on the internet, in the hopes of making an ex-boyfriend jealous. However, the mystery boy turns out to be a middle-aged man named Henry, who has a hatred for Max's mother Lucky as she did not cast him for a movie which she developed a few years ago. On the day of meeting Henry in Big Bear, many miles away from her Bel Air home, Max meets the nineteen-year-old Ace. 

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The film plot follows a children's soccer team which is the common link for a multi-layered story giving a candid look into the intersecting lives of five families living and working in Los Angeles. Oranges examines the complexities of racial and class divisions, and reveals that despite the fragile volatility of human relationships, family is what holds us together and unites us all. 

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Ngor is a young man living in a Senegalese village who wishes to marry Columba. Ongoing drought in the village has affected its crop of groundnuts and as a result, Ngor cannot afford the bride price for Columba. He goes to Senegal's capital city, Dakar, to try to earn more money and is exploited there. He returns to the villagers and shares his experiences of the city with the other men. The story, which shows the daily lives of the villagers, is told in the form of a letter to a friend from a villager, voiced by Faye.Russell, p. 59 

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In the first major cast change in ER, the sixth season sees the addition of four new characters: Dr. Luka Kovač; nurse, later third-year medical student, Abby Lockhart; Dr. Cleo Finch; and Dr. Dave Malucci. Paul McCrane's Robert Romano is now billed as a series regular and we also see the return of Deb Chen from season 1, now preferring to be called Dr. Jing-Mei Chen. Physician Assistant Jeanie Boulet leaves to care for her HIV- positive child. Lucy Knight and John Carter are attacked and stabbed by a psychotic patient. The ER staff work to save Carter and Lucy. Despite everyone's best efforts, They are unable to save Lucy who succumbs to her wounds and dies. In addition Croatian doctor Luka Kovač joins the team and struggles to gain the respect and trust from his new colleagues in the ER. Hathaway struggles to begin parenting on her own, then decides to leave Chicago to begin a new life with Doug Ross. Greene and Corday begin their relationship and he deals with the death of his father. Abby Lockhart begins her third-year-med-student rotation. While still recovering from the violent attack that left him near death and killed Lucy, Carter develops an addiction to pain medication, forcing Greene, Chen, and Weaver along with Benton and the other doctors into an intervention to get Carter to realize that he's an addict. Carter then accepts that he's an addict and checks into a rehab in the season finale with Benton accompanying him. 

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After Liptus arrives in a small village from the city, he calls his best friends, Miron and Melita, on winter holidays in Kopačevo. That same night, while they are all sleeping cozily, from their deep sleep Miron and Melita are woken by the disturbing sounds of villagers, carrying flares and disappearing into the darkness at the end of the street. At the docks, they find Halasz, a boy known for his bravery. He is cold, pale from shock, and babbling a white ghost. While most of the villagers don't believe Halasz's story, older citizens recall a long time ago when a forgotten spirit would scare people at night in dark and foggy swamps. Everyone locks themselves in their houses and Halasz ends up in a hospital where the doctors can't help him. Miron, Liptus, and Melita, now alone, take matters into their own hands, revealing the secret of the ghost and saving their friend. 

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In the midst of being remodeled, for a more open, safe floorplan, the show's seventh season starts with John Carter (Noah Wyle) completing his drug rehabilitation and trying to be who he was before he got stabbed with the support of Abby Lockhart (Maura Tierney), whose own life is in disarray after she is forced to drop out of medical school, her new romance with Luka Kovač (Goran Visnjic) hits many pitfalls and she reaches a crossroads in her Nurse position at County, and her bipolar-afflicted mother (Sally Field in an Emmy-winning turn) comes to stay. Tragedy ensues when Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards) is diagnosed with terminal cancer, giving him only weeks to live. Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) also has some issues of her own as she deals with her new lifestyle. Benton (Eriq La Salle) tries to find a new spot at County. Not wanting to upset Elizabeth Corday (Alex Kingston) — who is caught up in a malpractice suit — Mark keeps his illness a secret. After successful surgery, he proposes to her and she is heavily pregnant when they get married. This season also includes the 150th event episode in which a massive train wreck mobilizes the ER doctors and nurses to the scene. 

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After being gone for five years, Susan Lewis returns to the show providing continuity of the earlier years and some closure with Greene. Greene begins to experience health problems and deals with Rachel after she starts causing problems. In addition, Weaver also has a revelation and confronts and accepts her sexuality. The season's long story line of Greene's illness and death and how it affects many characters marks Season 8 as a major turning point in the series. This season also saw a major change in the cast, with four characters leaving, including original characters Greene and Benton as well as Cleo and Dave. Abby helps a neighbor, but faces repercussions and Kovac punches the man who clobbered Abby. In turn, two new main characters with very different personalities - Michael Gallant and Greg Pratt - are introduced in Season 8. For the first time, John Carter is centered as the main character of the show at the end of the season. In this season, several staff members face personal and professional pressures, including Greene and Corday who face the most difficult issue of all when their baby overdoses on Ecstasy pills. The two argue after their baby nearly dies. Weaver becomes more aggressive and she accepts that she is a lesbian. Greene's final episode as a regular character is the 21st episode of Season 8. Benton and Finch also leave to make new changes in their lives. After Greene's death, many of the characters become affected, especially Carter who reads two letters to the staff. A plague hits the ER as Season 8 ends. Several members attend Mark's funeral. 

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The Blackbird (Lon Chaney) is a thief who uses a second identity when necessary. He lives above a cheap bar in the Limehouse district, where his alter ego The Bishop, is beloved among all guests. One evening, the police drop by looking for him after a robbery, and he flees to a vaudeville theater, where his ex-wife Limehouse Polly (Doris Lloyd) has an act. Since their divorce they have become bitter towards one another, but Polly is willing to admit that she once married The Blackbird 'because she saw the soul in him that he did not know he got himself'. Furthermore, she admits to her father that she is still in love with him. The Blackbird, though, has become infatuated by Mademoiselle Fifi Lorraine (Renée Adorée), another performer and Polly's rival. He gives her a gun as a gift, explaining to her that someone as pretty as her should have a pistol or a man to protect her. Fifi prefers a diamond collar, and turns to a much wealthier guest in turn, West End Bertie (Owen Moore). The Blackbird catches him stealing a diamond collar for Fifi, but after a battle, he is the one handing it over to her. Nevertheless, Bertie wins her affection and takes her home at the end of the night. When The Blackbird finds out that Bertie and Fifi have become engaged, he poses as The Bishop to reveal to Fifi that Bertie is a crook. Bertie admits this, but twists the story to make him look sympathetic, thereby making Fifi fall for him even more. Seeing how the plan backfired, The Blackbird turns Bertie in to a Scotland Yard inspector. Before they can get him for robbery and murder, Fifi decides to help her fiance hide, something she afterwards reveals to The Bishop. Seeing how she is now involved, The Blackbirds changes his plans and, posed as The Bishop, offers Bertie a bed in his secret room. To drive them apart, The Bishop tells Bertie that he can not escape because the police are looking for him in the Limehouse district, and claims to Fifi that Bertie will escape that night, on his own. Fifi offers Bertie to go along, but when he responds that he is not going because of the police, she thinks that he is lying to her and starts an argument. During this, Bertie is set up to believe that Fifi told the cops on him, and she leaves in tears. Meanwhile, Polly finds out that the police are also looking for The Blackbird for killing a Scotland Yarder. Just as The Blackbird and Fifi are about to kiss, Polly drops by to share the terrible news. Realizing the setting she has walked in, she turns her back on The Blackbird, which causes him to respond in anger, thereby scaring off Fifi. At that moment, the police barges in. The Blackbird is able to dress himself up as The Bishop, but falls and breaks his back during the process, thereby actually becoming crippled. When Polly is asked to burn his clothes, she realizes that The Blackbird and The Bishop are the same. In the end, Fifi and Bertie are reunited. With Polly's help, The Blackbird is able to trick the police for a final time, but he dies in the aftermath. Lobby card 

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For the first time John Carter becomes the central character and Noah Wyle receives star billing. The death of Mark Greene continues to affect his colleagues while a grieving Corday has left Chicago for England. She returns and a medical student raises eyebrows. The ER is still plagued by the smallpox disease at the beginning. Elsewhere Romano suffers a horrific injury which has consequences throughout the season, Weaver finds herself promoted, Abby's family troubles resurface, Pratt continues to get on the wrong side of his colleagues, and Kovač and Carter join a relief mission in Africa, setting up a continuing story thread for following seasons. Carter deals with professional and family issues while other staff members have their own problems. Over the course of this season, Romano suffers setbacks after losing his arm, Abby and Carter lean towards a relationship, Pratt has troubles in both his personal and professional life and several staff members face critical decisions in the busy hospital at County General. 

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New characters arrive in the form of medical student Neela Rasgotra, hapless resident Archie Morris, and Nurse Samantha Taggart who fills the void left by Abby who returns to medical school. The aftermath of Kovač and Carter's mission in Africa becomes a key story throughout the season, a Thanksgiving tragedy sees the end of Romano, Lewis copes with an unexpected pregnancy, Pratt's professionalism is tested again by his colleagues, Gallant is deployed to Iraq and Chen and Weaver both deal with personal losses. Kovač returns from Africa, determined to settle his affairs and return. Sam and Kovač share a relationship but Sam's ex boyfriend arrives. 

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Several long term characters exit the series including Corday who quits after performing an illegal operation, Chen leaves to care for her ailing father and Carter also departs the ER to return to Africa with Kem. Elsewhere Lewis is promoted to ER Chief, Abby and Neela begin their internships along with newcomer Ray Barnett, Carter and Lewis compete for tenure, Weaver finally meets her biological mother, Kovač and Sam’s relationship deteriorates and Gallant makes an unexpected return from Iraq. 

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Kovač and Abby become the main central characters and their relationship slowly starts to get back on track as they deal with her unexpected pregnancy. A new nurse manager causes friction among the staff, following a successful operation Weaver no longer needs her cane, Pratt journeys to Africa where he joins Carter on a relief mission while a face from Sam's past leaves the lives of Abby and Kovač hanging in the balance. In addition to Darfur, geopolitics of the day get a strong spotlight due to the Iraq War. 

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Cock Robin (John Gilbert) is a sideshow barker in Budapest. He also participates in one of the acts; his former girlfriend Salome (Renée Adorée) dances before Herod in exchange for the head of "Jokanaan". As Jokanaan, Robin has his head seemingly chopped off and presented to the dancer on a platter, much to the delight of the audience. Salome wants to get back together with Robin, but he has his sights set on Lena (Gertrude Short), the daughter of a well-off sheep merchant. He lets the smitten Lena buy him things. The Greek (Lionel Barrymore), Salome's current boyfriend, becomes angered when he learns of her feelings. The Greek and his henchman, the Ferret, also try to steal Lena's father's money, but fail to find it after they murder him. That night, a heartbroken Lena tells Robin that her father has been killed. She trustingly shows him the substantial amount of money she had been holding for her father; when Robin ascertains that she has no brothers and that she has many more sheep, he becomes very interested. However, Salome eavesdrops, bursts in and warns Lena that Robin is only after her for her wealth. Lena flees, without her money. Robin is furious and can barely restrain himself from beating Salome. When Lena shows up at the sideshow with a policeman, Salome has Robin hide in her attic. One day, an old blind man (Edward Connelly), another resident of the building, comes to Salome to have her read to him another letter from his son; Salome tells him that the man has been promoted to captain and received a decoration. She assures the old man that his son will return someday with his regiment. Later, however, she reveals to Robin that the son is actually in the prison across the street, scheduled to be hanged the next morning. That morning, the old man hears voices in Salome's room and assumes his son has finally come home. Bursting with joy, he mistakes Robin for his son and takes him to his room, where he puts on his old uniform. Then, just after his real son is executed, he passes away. The Greek first tries to rid himself of his romantic rival by taking the place of the "executioner" and using a real sword to lop of Robin's head, but Salome sees through his disguise and stops him. When Robin goes into hiding, the Greek steals another sideshow attraction, a poisonous lizard, and plants it in Salome's attic. An official calls on Salome to inform her that she can claim her brother's possessions at the prison; Robin then realizes that the old man was her father. Thoroughly ashamed of himself, Robin reconciles with her. However, the official had spotted him hiding behind the door. When a policeman comes to arrest him, Robin hides in the attic, where the Greek has also been trapped. In the ensuing scuffle, the Greek is bitten by the lizard. Robin takes the money from his dead body and gives it to the policeman. For returning it voluntarily, Robin is let off. He and Salome return to the sideshow. When next they perform the act, she kisses him while his head is on the platter. 

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After John Sutter's aristocratic wife killed her Mafia don lover, John left America and set out in his sailboat on a three-year journey around the world, eventually settling in London. Now, ten years later, he has come home to the Gold Coast, that stretch of land on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America, to attend the imminent funeral of an old family servant. Taking up temporary residence in the gatehouse of Stanhope Hall, John finds himself living only a quarter of a mile from Susan, his aristocratic ex-wife, who has also returned to Long Island. But Susan isn't the only person from John's past who has reemerged: Though Frank Bellarosa, infamous Mafia don and Susan's ex-lover, is long dead, his son, Anthony, is alive and well, and intent on two missions: Drawing John back into the violent world of the Bellarosa family, and exacting revenge on his father's murderer—Susan Sutter. At the same time, John and Susan's mutual attraction resurfaces and old passions begin to reignite, and John finds himself pulled deeper into a familiar web of seduction and betrayal. In The Gate House, acclaimed author Nelson DeMille brings us back to that fabled spot on the North Shore—a place where past, present, and future collides with often unexpected results. 

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In the aftermath of the shootout Abby delivers a premature baby while Sam suffers a terrifying ordeal at the hands of her ex- boyfriend. Meanwhile, the show's longest-serving character Kerry Weaver departs when Kovač is forced to make budget cuts which threaten her job. Paramedic Tony Gates returns as the ER’s new intern, Kovač is sued for malpractice and is later forced to return to Croatia to care for his father, Abby struggles to adapt to motherhood and Ray is involved in a life-changing accident which turns Neela's world upside down. 

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The series celebrates its 300th episode but due to the writers' strike this season runs three episodes shorter than normal. As a result, certain storylines were altered, including Gates' relationship with hospital chaplain Julia Dupree. With Kovač in Croatia, the focus shifts to Abby as she adapts to life as a single parent. Meanwhile, new ER chief Kevin Morretti continues to make his presence felt until he makes a swift exit, Pratt is angered when locum Dr. Wexler is appointed as Morretti's replacement, Sam and Gates start a relationship and Jeanie Boulet makes a return to the ER when her son is brought in. 

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Inspector Delzante (Bela Lugosi), investigates a pair of murders near a British mansion in Calcutta. Helen O'Neill (Leila Hyams) becomes a chief suspect based on circumstantial evidence. A fake Irish medium, Madame LaGrange (Margaret Wycherly) was called in to try to help solve the first murder. 

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Robinson plays the ruthless boss of a criminal gang, willing to do anything to prevent a rival gangster from pulling off a bank robbery on 'his' patch. 

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In 1987, Sara Campbell (Virginia Madsen) is driving her son Matt (Kyle Gallner) home from the hospital where he has been undergoing cancer treatments. Sara and her husband Peter (Martin Donovan), a recovering alcoholic, discuss finding a rental house closer to the hospital. On another hospital visit, Sara finds a man putting up a “For Rent” sign in front of a large house. The man is frustrated and offers her the first month free if she will rent it immediately. The following day, Peter arrives with Matt's brother Billy (Ty Wood) and cousins Wendy (Amanda Crew) and Mary, and they choose rooms. Matt chooses the basement, where there is a mysterious door. After moving in, Matt suffers a series of visions involving an old, bearded man and corpses with symbols carved into their skin. The next day, Peter learns that the house was supposedly a funeral home; the room behind the mysterious door is a mortuary. Matt tells another patient, Reverend Nicholas Popescu (Elias Koteas), about the visions. Nicholas advises him to find out what the spirit wants. Later, Matt finds a burned figure in his room who begins to move toward him. When the family comes home, they find a shirtless Matt with his fingers blood-covered from scratching at the wall. The family begins to crack under the stress of Matt's illness and bizarre behavior. The children find a box of photographs, which show Jonah, a young man from Matt's visions, at a séance, emitting ectoplasm from his mouth. Wendy and Matt find out that the funeral home was run by a man named Ramsey Aickman. Aickman also conducted psychic research and would host séances with Jonah as the medium. At one séance, all those attending, including Aickman, were found dead and Jonah disappeared. Nicholas theorizes that Aickman was practicing necromancy in an attempt to control the dead and bind them to the house. That night, Nicholas finds human remains in the house and removes them. Matt awakens to find Aickman’s symbols carved into his skin. He is taken to the hospital, where he encounters Jonah. Nicholas and Matt begin to have simultaneous visions. Everyone in the séance is burnt, after a flash of bright light. The barely alive Aickman told Jonah to get out of the house, concerned that the demonic presence will get him next. Jonah uses a dumbwaiter to escape, calling for help. Entering an unknown chamber, Jonah realizes that he has entered the crematory. The spirit traps Jonah in the crematory, and cremates him alive. Peter and Sara learn that Matt's cancer treatments have had no effect. They then discover that Matt has escaped the hospital. Back at the house, Nicholas leaves a message telling the family to get out of the house immediately – Jonah's spirit was actually protecting them from the spirits. Matt breaks through the walls in the front room with an axe, revealing the dusty corpses Aickman hid in the walls. He forces Wendy and the children to get out, barricading himself inside and tearing down the other walls, as corpses begin to tumble into the room. The view switches from Matt to Jonah, who seems to be occupying Matt's body. Matt lights the bodies and the room on fire. Later on investigators arrive to the house to only find it engulfed in flames. As the fire department arrives, Sara and Peter frantically try to get in to save Matt. The spirits, finally freed, disappear. Outside, everyone watches tearfully as the emergency crew attempts to resuscitate a dying Matt. As Matt slips away, he has a vision of himself standing in the graveyard where he sees Jonah, no longer appearing burnt. He seems about to follow Jonah when he hears his mother’s voice. He returns to his body and Jonah's spirit leaves him. Matt's cancer disappears, and the house was rebuilt and resold with no further reported incidents of haunting. 

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Three friends - Bhavesh (Shreyas Talpade), Parag (Javed Jaffrey) and Pariksheet (Ashish Chaudhary) live in Pattaya, as paying guests in a house owned by Kiska Miglani (Asrani). Bhavesh works as a chef in a restaurant called Namaste India, owned by Ballu Singh (Johnny Lever). Ballu has a younger brother, Ronnie (Chunky Pandey), who wants ownership the restaurant, because he owes a considerable amount of money to a gangster, Murli (Inder Kumar). Parag is a screen writer for a television channel and Parikshit is a car salesman working for Aarti Gupta (Neha Dhupia). Eventually all three of them lose their jobs. The three friends are later joined by Jayesh (Vatsal Seth) from Mumbai, who is a cousin of Parikshit's, and tells them that an apartment is included if he gets a job at an architecture firm. After getting drunk celebrating Jayesh's arrival, they privately insult Kiska, who arrives back home unexpectedly, hears what they are saying and kicks them out. They go out in search of a place to stay and a friend of Parikshit's suggests paid lodgings. Parikshit and Jayesh go to the home to find its owner is Ballu Singh, to whom they are oblivious of the fact that he is Bhavesh's former employer. Ballu and his wife, Sweety (Delnaaz Paul), agree to let them stay on one condition - they must be married. Parag poses as Jayesh's wife, Kareena, and Bhavesh as Karishma, Parikshit's wife. Jayesh gets the job and will get the allotment to the flat in fifteen days' time. Ballu Singh and Sweety leave to pick up Sweety's sister, Kalpana (Celina Jaitly). When they arrive home, Jayesh's girlfriend, Alpita (Riya Sen), arrives with them and sees the four friends having (what she believes is) sex. She is instantly outraged at Jayesh and leaves him. Meanwhile, Parag seeks permission to marry Seema from her father (Paintel) and Bhavesh, while wooing Kalpana, finds himself in a situation where Ronnie tries to rape Karishma and in the process of saving Bhavesh, Jayesh nearly drowns him by accident. While discussing the event with Parag and Parikshit, he discovers the apple he has been eating has half a worm in it, Sweety hears Bhavesh vomit and mistakes him for someone being pregnant. In the meantime, Paintel has agreed that Parag can marry Seema, Aarti has fallen for Parikshit, Kalpana has chosen Bhavesh as her life partner and Jayesh has reconciled with Alpita. The four friends decide that it is time for them to tell Ballu and Sweety the truth. In a shopping centre, an accomplice of Ronnie's sees them and tells Ronnie. When they come home, they find Ronnie, Ballu Singh and Sweety there, but they do not know that anyone except the villain is there. Ronnie has persuaded Ballu to sign the papers transferring ownership of the restaurant, Bhavesh snatches the papers away and they all end up in a theater showing of Mughal-e-Azam, where they all don various costumes and each make their own humorous attempts to retrieve the documents. Ballu gets back the restaurant and forgives them on one condition - they give them the dream of a small child in the house, which they gladly set out to do. 

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The Titus Brothers Contractors company have won a government contract in Peru to blast a tunnel through a mountain and connect two isolated railroad lines. The deadline is approaching, and the contractors have hit a literal wall: excessively hard rock which defies conventional blasting techniques. The company is under pressure to finish, or else the contract will default to their rivals, Blakeson & Grinder. Mr. Job Titus has heard of Tom Swift and Tom's giant cannon, which is used in protecting the Panama Canal, and wants to hire Tom to develop a special blasting powder to help them finish the excavation. Mr. Damon, Tom's very good friend, arrives in the middle of this conversation, and is unaware of the situation. By coincidence, Mr. Damon is invested in a business which procures cinchona bark from Peru, but production has all but ceased, prompting Mr. Damon to invite Tom to accompany him to Peru and discover the source of the problem. Tom, Mr. Damon and Mr. Titus (along with Koku, Tom's giant) embark for Peru. On the way, they encounter Professor Swyington Bumper, who is on a lifelong quest to locate the lost city of Pelone. Professor Bumper returns to Peru each season, and has thus far been unsuccessful. When Professor Bumper discovers that Tom is headed to the same general area, Rimac, Professor Bumper decides to join the company. 

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A 12-year old young boy (Adam Hann-Byrd) is sent to live with relatives when his parents break up. He befriends a dying boy (Joshua Jackson) who has an eerie connection with nature. 

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The film follows a commercial airliner on a routine flight between Taipei and Seoul that is hijacked and taken to mainland China by the fictional Taiwan Revolutionary Army Front. Communist authorities cannot seize the plane because of the presence of an important business figure on the flight, and agree to cooperate discreetly with Taiwanese authorities to defuse an already tense situation. 

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Buck Duane is the son of a famous outlaw. Though an outlaw is not always a criminal, if the Rangers say he is an outlaw, it's just as bad – he's a hunted man. After killing a man in self- defense, Duane is forced to 'go on the dodge'. Duane turns up at an outlaw's hideout, still revolting at the idea of outlawry. Worse still, all the men he kills haunt him, for years. At the outlaw hideout, he meets a kidnapped, beautiful young woman and desires to see her free. In the second part of the book, Duane joins the Rangers, who want him to help to clear the frontier of major cattle rustlers and bank robbers, in return for the governor's pardon of his illegal deeds. 

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Jasper Pye is a polite, honest civil servant who lives with his mother. One night when he hears his girlfriend Deirdre describe him as 'a bore' at a party, he decides he needs an urgent, radical change in his life. The following morning he heads into the ministry, determined to resign his job and move to Paris to become a painter. Instead he is dissuaded by his superior, who instead wants him to go to Arcady Hall in Suffolk where the Office of Output Statistics, a small government department has been working since 1940 when it was commandeered during the Battle of Britain and overlooked for closure for a number of years, despite its apparent lack of usefulness. Initially reluctant to take the assignment the diffident Jasper is persuaded by his boss. He is told that his remit is essentially to close the place down, though he has an entirely "free hand" in the matter. Jasper prepares to leave for the small village of Arcady where Arcady Hall is located. Symbolically he recovers his umbrella which he had shoved into a flowerbed in St James's Park when planning to abandon the civil service, thinking to himself. "Well, it was a rather good umbrella, and it might rain" He catches a train to Arcady, but finds that the branch line that runs there from the neighbouring town had closed four years before. He instead has to walk into the village. He arrives to find Arcady Hall a magnificent sight but seemingly far too large for the small department of three employees who work there. He quickly finds himself the talk of the town, as the 'man from the ministry' who cuts quite a dash. In particular he strikes up a relationship with each of Lord Flamborough's daughters. Chloe, the eldest, trapped in an unhappy marriage with her drunken, wayward husband Lionel Virley, her first cousin and heir to the estate. Belinda the flirtatious and uninhibited middle daughter and the wildly gothic romantic youngest, Matilda. When he goes to meet the eccentric Lord Flamborough who, having lost both legs in a train accident whilst working as a driver during the 1926 General Strike, now lives on a steam train on a nearby private railway - the defunct branch line of the title. He appears content to have ceded the day-to-day running of the Hall to Professor Pollux, and having a passion for Trad Jazz (whilst being an erratic drummer at best) seems more interested in the fact that Jasper can allegedly dance the Charleston than remarking on any entanglements Pye may have with his daughters. Like everyone else in the village, he seems to take to Jasper, helping to persuade him to stay for the fete that Bank Holiday Monday, being held in aid of "fallen women". He is to be the judge of a competition of ladies' ankles. He has again disposed of his umbrella after being told he is very sexy apart from it. He soon finds that the department's two senior employees spend most of their time running the Hall and its history, the village and the local cricket team. Anything in fact, other than the jobs they are supposed to be doing. Jasper finds it very difficult to find out any information about the work of the department, due to a combination of their evasive responses and his own extracurricular activities, which draw him away from his task. On one of the rare moments when he actually manages to have a discussion on the department's function, the third employee, Miss Mounsey, breaks down and admits to him that she has been making up the statistics for a number of years, worrying this may have affected government policy. Jasper reassures her that "nobody has ever taken the least bit of notice in the work of your department" much to her relief. Jasper has become a regular fixture in the life of the village, despite having only been there for a few days. He undertakes a number of adventures such as painting a portrait of Belinda (her torso, naked), finding himself locked in the Hall dungeon/wine cellar with Lionel Virley, where they get completely inebriated, only to turn up late to the Arcady vs Flaxfield cricket match, where, while still drunk, score the winning runs, and actually rescue the game. He climbs the ivy on the ruined castle wall to join Matilda at the top, only to get stuck up there, He also became an overnight expert on gardening, a hero in the village (because of the cricket match), and is seen as the village Casanova. He skinny dips and romps naked around an island in the middle of a lake, with Belinda (the second daughter), joins a party on Lord Flamborough's train, and all the while he faces the difficult decision of whether to close the obviously redundant department despite the rural idyll it seems to support. Eventually he announces that the department is to close, a decision which does not go down well with Lord Flamborough or the villagers, although they apparently bear Jasper no ill will because of it, realising he is "just doing his job". The fete proceeds as planned, including a traction engine rally, the ankle-judging competition (won by Miss Mounsey) and a demonstration of the Charleston by Jasper. Miss Tidy, a lady who shared the railway carriage with Jasper on his way up to Arcady, and a former paramour of Lord Flamborough, announces that she has in fact been there acting on behalf of the National Trust who want to preserve the house for the nation, meaning that life can go on as it was before in Arcady. In the original novel Arcady Hall was destined to become a nuclear research establishment. Eventually, as Belinda and Matilda, the two unmarried daughters of Lord Flamborough, appear to have become bored with Jasper (just like Deirdre was), he meanwhile has come to realise that the woman he is most taken with is the shy spinster Miss Mounsey, the secretary for the department, who very obviously likes him, and admits 'I don't find you a bore, far from it'. When it starts to rain, he embraces his true persona by retrieving the umbrella from the flowerbed. The story ends with Jasper and Miss Mounsey embracing on the platform at Arcady station. 

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The story focuses on the relationship between Chinese-born Kwan and her younger, Chinese-American sister Olivia, who serves as the book's primary narrator. Olivia and Kwan's relationship begins when their father dies and Kwan is sent to live with the family. Olivia is embarrassed by Kwan because she is unfamiliar with American customs and does not speak English well. She constantly makes a fool of herself, and Olivia is teased by peers for having a "retarded" sister. Kwan relates to Olivia through the telling of Chinese tales and superstitions. She believes she has "Yin eyes", which means that she can see ghosts. She converses with them at night, frightening Olivia. She speaks Chinese in private, and Olivia picks up the language. Kwan believes that her stories are not just stories; they are based on her belief that she is part of the Yin world, the world of the ghosts. She believes that she is recounting tales from her past lives. In the melding of Olivia's modern Western world and Kwan's yin world, Olivia and Kwan create Asian-American identities for themselves, individually and together. Kwan plans a trip to China which is actually a scheme to get Olivia and her estranged husband, Simon, back together. Now Kwan serves as the translator for the writer (Simon) and photographer (Olivia). The real purpose of the trip is to discover Olivia and Kwan's connection to the Yin world. Kwan makes Olivia come to see that besides what we understand through our five senses, there are many things that can only be understood by using the "hundred secret senses". This story is about the journey of identity, family history, past lives, and ultimately, love."THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES". Kirkus Reviews, Sept. 1st, 1995. 

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For their honeymoon, newlyweds Cliff and Cydney travel to Hawaii. Driving towards a hiking trail that leads to a remote beach, the two encounter fellow newlyweds Cleo and Kale who are hitchhiking. Cliff has a bad feeling about the couple and is hesitant to give them a ride resulting in Kale aggressively taking Cleo away. On the trail they encounter fast talking tourist Nick, who claims to be a Delta Force veteran and one of the first Americans into Saddam Hussein’s palace during the Iraq War. Shortly after meeting Nick, they over hear a group of teenage girls discussing the recent double murder of a honeymooning couple by an unknown man and women. The group meets up with Nick’s girlfriend Gina at a waterfall, where they have another encounter with Kale and Cleo. Kale makes some vague threats about how hikers go missing on the trail all the time before leaving with Cleo. Nick and Gina accompany Cliff and Cydney along the trail under the presumption of safety in numbers. Tensions begin to arise in the group as Cliff and Cydney suspect Nick and Gina as the killers due to their odd behavior. The tensions, however, die down after the couples witness Kale and Cleo being arrested for the murders. Arriving at the remote beach, Cliff convinces Nick to explore a marine cave with him while Cydney and Gina wait behind on the beach. Once alone with Cliff in the cave, Nick realizes that he has been tricked as Cliff draws a gun. It is revealed that the real Cliff and Cydney were the unidentified victims of the double homicide, murdered by their impostors. The impostor Cliff is Rocky, the high school boyfriend of the imposter Cydney, and the two have been committing the murders to assume the identities of their victims. Gina, who has realized the truth about the couple, witnesses Rocky shoot Nick and attempts to escape. With Gina aware of their true nature, Rocky tells his girlfriend to mislead the police about the transpiring events while he chases after Gina. Rocky's pursuit of Gina is stopped by the emergence of Nick, who survived the gunshot due to metal plates in his head from a previously mentioned war injury. Nick gains the upper hand and holds Rocky at gunpoint, but a police helicopter contacted by Rocky's girlfriend arrives on the scene, warning Nick that he will be shot if he does not release Rocky. As Rocky tries to goad Nick into killing him, Gina gets Nick to back down. Realizing that Gina and Nick truly love each other, Rocky's girlfriend admits that Rocky is the murderer, prompting the police to shoot him when he tries to retrieve his gun. Travelling back on a helicopter, Nick proposes to Gina. Gina accepts and the two mutually agree not to go on a honeymoon. 

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Ivy League scholar Gregory Vance descends into an alcoholic abyss after the death of his wife. He ends up barely able to hold a job, and a night watchman's job at that. Vance's two children, Joan and Donald, are exceptionally intelligent and benefit from his tutoring. But they are bullied at school by other students and their father risks losing custody of them if he cannot change his ways. New teacher Agnes Billow is able to help Vance become more like the man he used to be, particularly after a political bigwig tempts him ethically with a bribe of a better job in exchange for Vance's vote. 

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The film starts with the Kingdom of Serbia, as part of the Balkan League, battling the remaining Ottoman forces during the First Balkan War in 1912 and ends with the outbreak of World War I in 1914; namely, the crucial Battle of Cer, first allied victory in World War I. It is largely set in and around a small village by the Sava river near Serbia's border with Austria-Hungary. The village is deeply divided between able-bodied men that are potential army recruits and the many disabled veterans from the previous Balkan Wars; there is bitter animosity between the two groups, who do not intermingle much with each other even though they live in the same village. The movie's central theme is a love triangle between the village gendarme Đorđe, his wife Katarina and the young disabled war veteran Gavrilo who was previously engaged to Katarina before he went to war and lost his arm in battle, and with the arm partly also his lust for life. Even though Katarina married Đorđe in the meantime, she still has affection for Gavrilo, which is a source of friction between the two. At the onset of World War I, all able-bodied men in the village are recruited for combat. Left in the village are only women, children and disabled veterans from previous Balkan wars. Rumours start circulating that the invalids in the village are trying to take advantage of the situation by making their moves on the women in the village - the wives and sisters of the recruited men. These rumours reach the villagers at the frontlines, and in order to prevent mutiny the army staff decides to recruit the invalids as well and send them to the front line. 

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The story takes place between November 1945 and June 1946 in British India. Peter Morrison and his cadet comrades arrive in Bangalore for military service and are informed that they will have an Indian commander. The cadet Alister Mortleman disapproves strongly. During a visit with Captain Detterling to Ley Wong's restaurant, the Earl of Muscateer, the son of Detterling’s cousin Lord Canteloupe, gets food poisoning and later dies of jaundice. The cadets meet their Indian commander, Gilzai Khan, and (except for Mortleman) take a liking to him. Khan starts a sexual relationship with the cadet Barry Strange. Khan shows strong feelings during Muscateer's funeral, and later during some heavy drinking at Ley Wong’s is rebuked by Mortleman. Khan arranges an unusual duel in which Mortleman will have the advantage of youth and Khan that of experience: the men will demonstrate their sexual endurance with Ley Wong's waitresses, and the one who displays the highest number of ejaculations will win. Mortleman beats Khan by 3 – 2. Shortly after, Peter Morrison starts a relation with a prostitute, Margaret Rose Engineer. Riots and unrest are breaking out all over India and Khan, a non religious Muslim, predicts bloodbaths between the Hindus and Muslims when the British leave. Morrison is blackmailed by Margaret Rose who says that he promised her marriage, and would have to resign his commission. Khan saves him by planting false evidence that she’s been forging ID cards at her home, and the charge against Morrison is dropped. Shortly after that Khan is removed from his command because of his positive attitude to British rule. An emotional farewell dinner for Khan is held at Ley Wong’s. Murphy, a cadet held back in hospital for a while, is rapidly promoted to captain by chance. Morrison, Mortleman and Strange are posted to Berhampore. When they arrive they are informed of Khan's resignation from the army without any explanation. Morrison is visited by Murphy, now working for the viceroy, who explains that Khan left the army to become a political agitator. Khan wants the British to remain in India to prevent the Hindus and Muslims from slaughtering each other. Murphy orders Morrison to “fix” the affair, i.e. kill Khan. Shortly thereafter, Khan also visits Morrison, reveals that his group will block the local railway and asks Morrison and his friends to stay away if they can. Morrison tells Khan about his own orders, and they part on friendly terms. Very soon, Morrison, Strange and Mortleman face Khan during the action against the railway. Morrison is trying to arrest Khan but Strange and Khan have a quarrel, Strange stabs Khan with a sabre who dies congratulating Morrison on contriving his death. The men are devastated but are hailed as heroes and cleared of any charges. As they return to England they are given news that Murphy has been killed by a car bomb. 

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When a series of unexplained vicious animal attacks strikes his community, Sheriff Jim Tanner and his assistant Barbara trace them back to a Dr. Hyde, a former military researcher whose government funding for a dinosaur cloning project was cut. When the Pentagon discovers Hyde obtained foreign backing to continue his experiments, they send in a strike team to save Tanner and Barbara and stop Hyde. 

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The film features many interviews, including one with Sirhan's younger brother Munir, who talks about his brother's upbringing and perceived injustices. Other interviewees include Paul Schrade (a union leader who was shot during the assassination), Sandra Serrano (a witness who saw two people gleefully running out of the Ambassador Hotel after the shooting) and Vincent diPierro (a witness to the assassination). Lengthy audio clips are also provided that attest to Serrano's forceful manipulation at the hands of Los Angeles police sergeant Hank Hernandez and Sirhan's extreme suggestibility to hypnosis. O'Sullivan identifies a possible second assassin, armed security guard Thane Eugene Cesar, who was immediately behind Kennedy at the time of the shooting and sold his gun soon after under mysterious circumstances. An attempt is also made to identify several figures appearing in news footage from the night of the assassination as CIA operatives who may have had a role in the assassination. The short film RFK Must Die: Epilogue details a recent audio analysis that concluded that 13 shots were fired, suggesting the possibility of a second shooter.Shane O'Sullivan's "RFK Must Die: Epilogue" (2008) 

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Ferrari (Nicholas Tse), is a young swindler. He has been swindling people for money in many situations. One day, a cop nicknamed 'Stupid' (Karl Maka) is about to catch him swindling. He makes a deal with Ferrari to help him catch Master Swindler Wong (Sam Hui), the world's most notorious swindler who is penning his autobiography of his swindling ways. Ferrari runs into Bastardly Sze (Alec Su) who is stalking a rich woman and taking her pictures. Paulina Wu (Joey Yung)'s father is one of the victims of the Master Castrator Swindler. So she decides to get her father's money back. On her trip, she runs into Bastardly Sze and Ferrari. The three wants swindle the girl, whom they think is Master Swindler Wong's daughter, Wu Sen Kwan (Ruby Lin). With Wu Sen-kwan is her so-call assistant, Ching (Annie Wu). Ching and Ferrari once met before. Ferrari and Ching were going out on a date. Ching asked Ferrari wait for her to come, she never did. Later, he learned Ching had swindled him. The group (Ferrari, Bastardly Sze, and Paulina) are following fake Swindler Wong's daughter to the boat. They have a plan to swindle her money. Ferrari pretends to be a priest. He asks Swindler Wong's daughter to donate $1 million for charity. During that time, Bastardly Sze is falling for Wu Sen-kwan. Paulina is jealous of Wu Sen Kwan because she likes Bastardly Sze. Sze feels bad in swindling Sen Kwan. 

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After lightweight prizefighter Kid Mason (Ayres) loses his opening fight, golddigging wife Rose (Harlow) leaves him for Hollywood. Without her around, Mason trains seriously and starts winning. Naturally, Rose returns and worms her way back into his life, despite the misgivings of manager George Regan (Armstrong). Eventually, she cons Mason into dumping Regan and replacing him with her secret lover Lewis (Miljan), even though he has almost no experience in the fight game. To make matters worse, Mason's high living and neglect of his training threatens his latest title defense. 

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The story starts in the little town of Menton (April 1959) where Angela Tuck spends some time with the recently widowed con-man Mark Lewson. Lewson, who's waiting for some economic gain, steals 40,000 francs from Angela and is trying to his luck at a casino. After he's lost almost everything he is rescued by professional player Max de Freville and leaves the casino with 100,000 francs. De Freville makes him a proposition. Two of his colleagues, gamblers Stratis Lykiadopolous and Jacques des Moulins, have got hold of an interesting letter since the latter has seduced the son of a minister of Lebanon. This letter proves that the British government (or part of it) planned the Suez crisis together with Israel. Since the two men want to protect the minister's son they’ve hidden the letter. De Freville wants Lewson to steal the letter and he accepts the mission and goes to Venice, where Lykiadopolous lives. During this time, old friends Alistair Dixon and Rupert Percival have a discussion about who is going to succeed the former when he retires as MP for the seat of Bishop's Cross. As things turn out, both Peter Morrison and Somerset Lloyd-James are candidates for selection. Fielding Gray, who has, quite literally, lost his face in a bomb explosion and has retired from the army, sees his old friend Somerset Lloyd-James to ask for work. The always Jesuitical Lloyd-James can’t see a reason to refuse and will give his old friend some work in the literary field. Gray also meets Tom Llewyllyn, who has become a successful writer. Llewyllyn is soon to be married to Patricia Turbot, the younger daughter of the politician Sir Edwin Turbot. During a party at the Turbot mansion, where Lord Canteloupe is drinking rather heavily, Carton Weir appears to give news about Canteloupe becoming company secretary of British Recreational Resources. Many people around Canteloupe think this is outrageous since they consider him a moron. Mark Lewson is trying to get hold of the letter and succeeds after the son of the minister is killed by a bomb in Paris. Lykiadopolous simply gives it to him since he no longer has any reason to hide it. Lewson also frequents director Burke Lawrence, who is pestered by former model Penelope Holbrook. De Freville tells Lewson to "do" something about the letter. Lloyd- James manages to kick Robert Constable off the board of Strix on a technicality. He replaces him with Lord Canteloupe. Gregory Stern wants to become publisher for Gray and even print an edited version of his journal, in more literary form. Gray becomes a lodger at Tessie's, who also takes in Jude Holbrook, who hasn’t been seen in years. Lewson manages to sell the letter to Lloyd-James and the two of them visit Sir Edwin to persuade him to give the party's support to Lloyd-James. Tom and Patricia marry at midsummer and most of the characters attend the wedding. Grey and Morrison meet for the first time since 1955, Salinger is trying to suck up to the rather drunk Lord Canteloupe and even Sir Edwin becomes rather drunk and sentimental. A cigarette causes a fire and the firemen arrive right at the moment when Isobel Turbot and Mark Lewson take off in a sports car. A fireman is killed in the tumult. Lord Canteloupe struggles with a camp site he has constructed called “Westward Ho!” With the help of Maisie, Jude Holbrook nabs the letter from Lloyd-James. Unknowing, Sir Edwin has made his party support Lloyd-James. De Freville, plagued by mental problems, gives a last scandalous evening of gambling and later tells his friend Captain Detterling about the letter and the many twists the story has taken. A number of persons are now chasing Isobel and Mark (mostly Mark): a group consisting of Morrison, Detterling and Gray; the team Alfie Schroeder and Tom Llewyllyn and also Carlton Weir, sent out by Lloyd-James. Maisie tells Gray about how Holbrook stole the letter from Lloyd-James and after some detective work he finds him hiding at his mother's. Holbrook threatens Gray with acid but the already disfigured Gray isn’t very afraid and overcomes Holbrook. He is now owner of the letter. At that time, Isobel and Mark arrive at “Westward Ho!” and try to act like normal campers. By coincidence almost all of the different search parties arrive at the site at the same time. Mark and Isobel, returning with their car, have an accident and Mark dies. While the friendly Stern is comforting the hysterical Isobel the other argues about what to do with the letter. Lord Canteloupe eventually destroys it. This doesn’t make things easier for Morrison since Sir Edward and the Tories continue to back Lloyd-James, a man they consider easier to handle than the always "moral" Morrison. Towards the end of the book Tom and Patricia can, at last, have their honeymoon while Stern marries Isobel. In the last scene Angela Tuck (again) and Max de Freville discuss everything that has happened. 

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The film is set up as a series of sketches featuring Jim Varney's various characters, some of which he introduced in his stand-up comedy routines: Davy, the frontiersman; Ace, the fighter pilot; Lloyd Rowe, the mean-spirited mountain man; Billy, the jive-talking carny; Rhetch, a reckless riverboat gambler; and Ernest's "Pa." Ernest P. Worrell's appearances serve as a framing device, with the characters introduced as his relatives and the ever-insistent Ernest trying to tell the unwilling-as-usual Vern about the characters. 

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A man named Ke Zhi Hong (Wallace Chung) moves into a new apartment. His initially thorny landlord, whose Chinese name sounds similar to the words for "Evening Rose", Xia Mei Gui (Ruby Lin), lets him rent one room of the apartment because her dog likes him. She reminds him of his dream girl from his university years, who was his senior by one year and taught him to dance the Jewish dance "Evening Rose". He gradually falls in love with his landlord, but he continues to dwell on his memories of the past "Evening Rose". In the end, he realizes that he remembers the past "Evening Rose" because the name "Evening Rose" reminds him of the feeling of love, and he falls into the arms of the present "Evening Rose". 

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In the far future, the Doctor discovers a benchmarking vessel punching holes through the universe. 

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The Great Patriotic War is nearing the end. In a train two youths, Volodya (Boris Tokarev) and Valya (Natalia Bogunova) returning from evacuation to Leningrad cross paths for a few minutes. The plot carries them to their first random encounter that takes place in the summer of 1941 at a crowded refugee station. The period of growing adolescents, their introduction to adult life occurs in the arduous years of war. During the bombing of the evacuation train near the Mga station, dies the mother (Lyubov Sokolova) of Valya and her younger sister Lucy (Lida Volkova). After long wanderings in orphanages, the girls are found by their own aunt and they find shelter in her house. The fate of Volodya Jakubowski develops in a difficult way; mother (Nina Urgant) is divorced from his own father (Yuri Volkov), who has long had another wife and son Oleg (Nikolai Burlyayev), a half-brother of Volodya. In evacuation the mother is trying to arrange her personal life, and gets close to the army captain (Stanislav Checkan). Not wanting to burden her, the teenager takes a job at a defensive aircraft factory and moves to a hostel. There he finds a good friend - Romka (Valery Nosik). Learning that the woman is pregnant, the captain breaks up with Volodya's mother. The unfavorable reputation of a "loose" woman, a baby girl born without a father, make her unable to rent decent accommodation. The teen takes has a difficult time coping with his mother's unhappy personal life, and goes to Leningrad to his father, so that he would issue a due summons to the city from which the blockade was only recently lifted. Jakubowski Sr. initially refuses to help (facts about the mothers infidelity are discovered) but matured Volodya is insistent and gets what he wants. The father objects to communication between Volodya and Oleg however the teenagers are introduced and become friends. 

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Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang pick up a hitchhiking Gary Coleman, and the Mystery Machine soon proceeds to break down multiple times, finally leaving them stranded at a haunted castle owned by David Cross. The show contained multiple references and gags that take jabs at the original show, musical numbers by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and concluded with a nonsensical ending, with Coleman pointing out all of the plot holes in the story. Scooby interrupts him by licking his face until the episode ends. 

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Fourteen-year-old Dylan's Hickock father, Bill, had quite often been strange. Bill would often go from one favorite subject to another, borrowing books to suit his interest. Dylan's mother goes on a four-month expedition to Egypt as an Egyptologist. Dylan's father had been on a hunting trip to Mount St. Helens, which is in danger of an eruption. Later, he takes Dylan to a cryptozoology convention called Bigfoot International, where Dr. Theodore Flagg is late for the meeting, and one member shows a snapshot of Bigfoot. Later, when Dr. Flagg, who supports bringing in evidence of Bigfoot in the form of an actual specimen, dead or alive, arrives, someone in the audience named Buckley Johnson objects to his views. Dylan's father objects to the idea as well, but is quiet about it. Dylan and his father later go to his house, because he owns real estate and Mr. Johnson is one of his buyers. There is a giant statue of Bigfoot in his yard, and he is being watched by a neighbor, Peter Nunn, who also owns a house from Bill Hickock's real estate and has set up video cameras and tape recorders. Bill invites Mr. Johnson to dinner with him and Dylan. Mr. Johnson tells them to call him Buck, and denies ever seeing the Sasquatch. Later, while Dylan's father joins Dr. Flagg on the expedition to Mount St. Helens, and everyone comes to Dylan's house for the night, taking away all communications so that the word isn't spread. Dylan's father wants him to quietly get Buck involved in this, but when Dr. Flagg is woken up he points a gun at Dylan, and Bill thinks Dr. Flagg is crazy. Dylan goes over to Buck's house, enters from the back so "Peter Nunn" is not able to capture them on camera. He finds out that Buck's wife Betty and his son Gary had died, and that Buck is a retired field biologist. Dylan later shows his dad, who is not tech-savvy, how to e-mail. He wants to go on the expedition with them, but his dad says it's too dangerous, and they must leave now before they set up restricted access zones, and Dylan promises to stay with his friend Doug. Dylan meets the expedition's tracker, Kurt Skipp, who is slow at walking but very quick with his hands. When the expedition leaves, "Peter Nunn", who now calls himself Agent Crow, shows up at Dylan's house. He shows Dylan an FBI badge, and warns him that Buck is dangerous. After Agent Crow leaves, Dylan arrives at Buck's house, and Buck demands the extra communication radio. The radio was left behind by Clyde and his brothers, because they only need one radio as Clyde's brothers are mute and he claims that they were sent by aliens from the planet Zona. Dylan is about to give Buck the radio and a map, but says that he will not give them to him unless he takes Dylan with him to Mount St. Helens. Buck needs the radio and map, so he brings Dylan with him. Buck also says that Agent Crow is following him because he thinks he stole something, and that Agent Crow is no longer an actual FBI agent. On the news, a volcanologist being interviewed says that the volcano is not likely to erupt. On the way to the mountain, Dylan has to pee and is interrupted by tremors caused by the volcano. Buck takes Dylan to an old cabin, which smells horrible, and they open the windows even though it lets ash inside. When they go to sleep, Dylan hears a piercing howl in the distance, and Buck insists it's a mountain lion. The next day, Dylan is sent to fetch water from the river, because Buck uses a walking staff to walk, and the cane has a carving of a mountain and his wife and son. Dylan gets lost and encounters a Sasquatch footprint. He eventually gets back to the cabin, but there is a tremor and a hot pipe sags from the ceiling, and Buck warns Dylan not to touch it. Over breakfast, Dylan convinces Buck to tell him about Sasquatch, but Buck says only if he doesn't ask any more questions. He also explains that a locked cabinet in the cabin is Pandora's Box. Buck tells him that the Sasquatch is real, and that the howl they heard last night was from a Sasquatch, and that his friend Billy Taylor who had previously owned the cabin could talk to the Sasquatch, and when he died the cabin was given to Buck. The next few days it rained, and Dylan and Buck were kept inside. On the radio, they hear that the expedition is to go down to the ravine, and Buck seems to dislike the idea greatly. Dylan goes for a walk and encounters Agent Crow. He explains that Buck, who likely went under the pseudonym D. B. Cooper or Dan Cooper, hijacked an airplane and stole $200,000, and later a boy found some of the money on the ground, and the FBI considered Buck to be a primary suspect. When Dylan returns to the cabin, Buck is not there, and the walking staff, as well as the map and radio were gone as well. Pandora's Box was unlocked, and Dylan finds another staff in it, and uses it to turn a hole in the ground, which opens a trapdoor with an extremely long ladder. Dylan climbs down the ladder, and tries to look for Buck. He gets lost, and there are still tremors, and he discovers money in the caves under the cabin. He yells for help, and Buck and an adult Sasquatch find him. Buck admits that he is D. B. Cooper to Dylan Hickock. He says he committed the hijacking to pay for cancer treatments for his son. He also says that his wife Betty had told Billy to stash the money in the cabin. Buck had also talked to Dylan's dad though the radio by setting up a code. Buck tells Dylan to go to the ravine and make giant Sasquatch footprints using a cast made from real ones, and to lead them away from the tunnel. Agent Crow interferes on the radio, and talks about Buck, and Kurt Skipp soon arrives and discovers Dylan making the footprints, and sees a Bigfoot-like creature, and shoots at it. Dylan tries to stop him, but Kurt knees him in the stomach. At the same time, the volcano had a small eruption, and trees collapse on Kurt and kill him. Dylan hears his dad on the radio and talks to him. Dylan discovers his dad at a waterfall, and he is injured and barely conscious. A Sasquatch takes Dylan's dad to a safer place and beckons Dylan to follow. He talks to Dr. Flagg on the radio and tells him about the situation. A helicopter arrives to take Dylan and his Dad back to civilization. Clyde and his brothers are missing, and Dylan thinks they went back to Zona. When they get back home, Dylan wonders what had happened to Buck, and Dylan sends a message to his mother that Dylan's father is in hospital. Dylan receives an e-mail from Buck that an "old friend" is about to arrive at his house, but it's Agent Crow. In the fridge, there was a message from Buck for Agent Crow, saying that he confessed to the hijacking. Another message was for Dylan, saying that Agent Crow should get more exercise. After Agent Crow leaves, Dylan also finds a wooden staff from Buck to remember him by. On it, a face resembling Dylan was carved into the handle. 

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The film is a series of comical musical numbers and skits following Phil Harris around, starting with him performing at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, which is listened to by Dorothy on the radio whose homebrewing husband Walter hates Harris. The action then moves to the country club where Walter unknowingly encounters Harris while being aggravated by his music. Walter then pretends to be Phil to meet a woman while Harris "entertains" her friend, Dorothy. 

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The story describes how the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa on the island blew half of the large island into the air that produced a tsunami, and an air wave that was felt seven times around the globe. The eruption also emitted tons of dust that dimmed the sun all over the world for many months. 

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Señor Martinez, a famous theater owner, visits a local café in Mexico because of its reputation for good food and to audition the famous dancer who performs there. Martinez tells the café owner that if the dancer is as good as he has heard, he will offer the dancer a contract to perform in his theater. The café's female singer hears about this and is determined that he won't leave the café without her. 

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As Shu's village was being attacked by an unknown enemy, he and his friends, Jiro and Kluke decide to defend their home. They soon meet Zola and receive the powers of Shadow, an ability that lets them transform their shadow into a powerful monster. Shu receives one of the most powerful monsters, Blue Dragon, and they all set out to defeat their enemy. 

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The novel adventures in the realms of Prester John. 

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Peter Salem, a former Wall Street executive recently released from prison, returns to his ex-wife and children in the small town of Bunker Hill, Kansas. Soon after he arrives, the town's electricity and power are shut off, and there is no way to communicate with authorities outside of town. The town's militant past is reawakened and forces coalesce to protect citizens from an unseen enemy. The town's fear leads to the creation of a posse of gunmen, resulting in torture, illegal searches and eventually, murder, against which Salem must stand. 

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Yvan (Bouli Lanners), a used car salesman, comes home late one evening to his house in the Belgian countryside. He discovers that a burglar (Fabrice) has just broken into his house and is hiding under his bed. When the burglar tries to escape, Yvan knocks him over by throwing a metal pipe at him. Upon confronting him, he discovers that the burglar is a young man in need of money to fuel his drug addiction. Yvan decides to help this young man, who says his names is Elie, by not turning him over to the police and by giving him a little money for the road. Finally, out of pity and remembering his own brother who had died of an overdose, Yvan decides to drive Elie, at his request, to the home of his parents in southern Belgium. Thus begins a journey across Wallonia, on which they face unsettling encounters with random people and humorous situations. 

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The story takes place in 1962. Tom Llewyllyn have been working at the BBC for some years. He engages Fielding Gray to do a documentary about Cyprus. Gray, who had his face disfigured on that very island is reluctant but gives in since he hopes to find some facts that will give him some kind of revenge. Llewyllyn is not terribly happy in his marriage with the sloppy and not 100% mentally stable Patricia. Her sister Isobel, on the other side, is very happily married to Gregory Stern. The publisher Stern has lately become very interested in his Jewish heritage and neglects his publishing a bit. When Gray goes by train to Greece he meets Leonard Percival, who warns him to continue the trip on that particular train. A nervous Gray eventually jumps of the train in Yugoslavia right before it crashes off a bridge, killing all aboard. Gray, who is unharmed, is transported to Athens where he meets friend and colleague captain Detterling. Meanwhile, Somerset Lloyd-James and Lord Canteloupe, scared that nasty things about the British engagement on the island will be revealed, are trying to prevent Llewyllyn and Gray from making their documentary. Gray and Detterling also meet the couple Max de Freville and Angela Tuck. De Freville is trying to make a comeback as a gambler and tells some interesting things about Cyprus. Gray has sex with Angela and they discus memories from the summer of 1945. Leonard Percival arrives also and confirms that forces on Cyprus wanted to kill Gray. An important person in this group is Earl Restarick, an American spook working for the CIA. De Freville can, however, prove that this man has been involved in killings on Cyprus since he left a handkerchief near the body of a murdered boy. Gray, after arriving at Cyprus, manages to find the body and the handkerchief. To get more proof against Restarick, Gray wants an interview with the famous guerrilla leader colonel Georgios Grivas. Restarick, who has been following the affair, has his own interview with Angela Tuck and she reveals some of Grays's weaknesses. Somerset Lloyd-James is trying to drag Tom Llewyllyn down by using Maisie but she refuses, and even tells Llewyllyn about the dodgy business. Restarick sends out the beautiful Greek boy Nicos to catch Gray, and he manages quite well. The somewhat confused Gray takes him for his dead lover Christopher. Nicos manages to keep Gray away from Athens and Grivas and Gray forgets about all his duties. Meanwhile, Tom Llewellyn is fired from the BBC since it turns out that he hasn't had a National Insurance Card for years and didn't even know about it. Tom has even lied about the card since he wasn't that interested in the matter. When Restarick hears about this he recalls Nicos, who unceremoniously dumps the devastated Gray. At that moment Isobel Stern is having a miscarriage in London. Gray stays in Argos and drinks very heavily for a week but Max de Freville, a somewhat decent fellow, sends his friend Harriet Ongley to pick him up and get him in shape. Tom is invited to take up a Namier Fellowship at Lancaster College and accepts – right at the moment when his wife Patricia finds she's pregnant for the second time. Category:1968 British novels Category:Novels by Simon Raven Category:Fiction set in 1962 Category:Novels set in Cyprus Category:Novels set in Greece 

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Set in a 20th-century Creole village in the Mississippi Delta, the opera focuses on the deadly revenge that the beautiful Clothilde enacts on Bazile, a handsome young man who does not return her expressions of love. When Clothilde discovers that Bazile has been in communication with Aurore, a spirit who identifies herself as Bazile's lover from a distant era, Clothilde threatens to have Bazile arrested for violating local religious customs. When Bazile continues to refuse to wed Clothilde, she arranges for a mob to have him lynched. In his death throes, however, Bazile's soul is united with Aurore; Clothilde lives out the remainder of her years as a bitter recluse. 

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In a small hotel room on the 26th floor of the Holiday Inn in downtown Wichita, Kansas, three representatives of an industrial lubricants firm prepare to host a convention hospitality suite. One is Phil, a recently divorced account manager in his mid-50s who's begun to question his purpose in life and work. Another is Larry, about 40 and energetic—the embodiment of confident salesmanship but far more than just another glad hand. The third is Bob, early 20s, a fresh recruit from the company research department—brought into the affair (and out of his element) to represent the company's technical expertise. He is fresh out of school, recently married, affable, inquisitive, and religious. Larry and Phil have a singular hope for the evening—to make the acquaintance of Dick Fuller -- CEO of one of the largest manufacturing firms in the Midwest and, as such, a potential savior of their ailing company... a man whom they invited but have never met or seen. As the three prepare the room and themselves to host the evening's festivities, the conversation tacks into delicate issues not often discussed in a business environment—including religion, where the stark differences between Larry and Bob come to light and subtle battle lines are drawn below the surface. Late that night, when the last of the partygoers has downed his last drink and left the room, Phil and Larry are desolate because Dick Fuller didn't show. Larry had even left the room to search for him earlier in the night but was unable to hunt him down. All seems truly lost until, by a slip of the tongue, they realize that Dick Fuller did show up and that Bob unwittingly talked to him at length about a lot of issues unrelated to industrial lubricants, including religion—a fact that accentuates the battle lines and brings Larry's blood to a low boil. Bob is sent on a mission to find Dick Fuller at another party down the street and relay Larry and Phil's desire to speak to him about lubricants. Later still, as Phil and Larry wait for Bob, the questions bugging Phil about life and purpose make themselves known—cutting through the veneer of their relationship and exposing both to their true feelings about each other. When Bob returns and reveals that he found Dick Fuller but that he could only bring himself to talk to him about Jesus, the gloves come off, and no one is left unscathed. 

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Éramos Seis chronicles the struggles of a middle-class family in São Paulo through the eyes of its matriarch Dona Lola. 

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A group of young Cambridge students in Victorian England form a group called The Devil's Alphabet Society. Upon their graduation, they make an oath to meet at the same time every year without excuse, not even death. When one member commits suicide twenty years later, the surviving members discover that they are indeed bound by their oath, as evidenced by the deceased signing his name and consuming a drink. The remaining members die either by accident or suicide until only one member remains. He returns to their meeting place and asks the spirits that the Devil's Alphabet Society be dissolved. After some deliberation amongst the ghosts, all vote yes, which ends the pacts and frees the spirits from Purgatory. 

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The story begins with the protagonist Dave Sanders walking home from work, irritated with the way he has been treated. Dave works for a farmer on a cattle farm and as he walks across the fields he begins thinking of ways that will prove to the other workers that he is a grown up. He decides that the perfect way to prove that he is a grown up is to purchase a gun. Instead of going home, he goes over to a local store to have a look at the guns in a Sears Roebuck catalog. When he enters into the store, Dave encounters the owner Fat Joe. Dave requests the catalog, leading Joe to ask him if he is planning on buying something. Dave responds with a “yessuh,” so Joe then inquires whether or not Dave's ma is letting him have his own money now, to which Dave responds with a “[s]hucks. Mistah Joe, Ahm gittin t' be a man like anybody else,”! Joe asks what exactly it is Dave is planning on buying; a question Dave is reluctant to answer unless Joe promises not to say anything. Joe promises and Dave tells him he's looking to purchase a cannon ball; Joe states that Dave “ain’t nothing but a boy,” and that he does not need a gun, but if he's going to buy one he might as well buy it from him and not from some catalog. Joe offers to sell Dave a left-hand Wheeler, fully loaded and in working order for only two dollars if he can get the money from his ma. With his excitement and interest aroused, Dave leaves the store vowing to come back for the gun later. When he gets home his mother awaits him, irritated because he has kept supper waiting. Dave sits down at the table with the borrowed catalog until his mother takes it from him, threatening to make it outhouse material if he does not get up and wash. After explaining that it was not his she gives it back to him only to have him fumble through it all throughout dinner. Dave was so infatuated with the catalog that he did not even notice his food was in front of him, or that his father had spoken to him. He determines that if he was going to get the pistol that he had better ask his mother for the money and not his father because his father would instantaneously say no, whereas his mother might be a little easier to persuade. Upon the completion of supper, Dave finally builds up enough tenacity to approach his mother with his inquiry. He starts the conversation by asking if his boss, Mr. Hawkins, had paid her for the work he had accomplished on the plantation. His mother responds that she has received the money but that it was to be saved in order to buy clothes for the winter. Dave presents to her his proposition and she responds by saying, “[g]it outta here! Don yuh talk t' me bout no gun! Yuh a fool!" Dave persuades her by stating that the family needs a gun, and that if he bought it he would surrender it to his father. Despite her better judgment, Mrs. Sanders agrees to give Dave the two dollars he needs as long as he promises that as soon as the pistol is in his possession he will bring it straight home and turn it over to her. Dave runs out the door with the money and purchases the pistol from Joe. On his way home he stops in the fields to play with the gun, only he is unsure of how to use it so he just points and pretends to be shooting imaginary objects. When he arrives at his house he breaks his promise and does not surrender the gun, instead he hides it under his pillow, and when his mother comes to retrieve it he claims to have hidden it outside. Dave wakes and with the gun in his hands thinks to himself that he now has the power to “kill anybody, black or white.” He ties the pistol to his leg with a piece of flannel and leaves the house early so he can go unnoticed and not have to give up the gun. Dave arrives at work early so Mr. Hawkins tells him to hook up Jenny, the mule, and go plow the fields located near the woods. Dave is delighted with the request because it meant he would be so far away from everyone else that he could practice his shooting and no one would hear. When he gets out to the woods, Dave plows two rows then takes his gun out to show Jenny, he waves the gun around then closes his eyes and take his first shot. The gun flies back in Dave's hand and scares away the mule. When he catches up to her he realizes that Jenny has been shot and he tries repeatedly to plug the hole with handfuls of “damp black earth.” Jenny eventually dies. By sunset Jenny's body is found and Dave is questioned by both his parents and Mr. Hawkins about what happened. Dave lies about the incident stating that something was wrong with Jenny causing her to fall on the point of the plow. His mother knows this is a lie and insist Dave tell the truth. In tears, Dave confesses, but lies yet again when asked what he has done with the gun. Mr. Hawkins tells Dave that although it was an accident he will pay two dollars a month until he has paid fifty dollars to replace the mule. That night Dave feels annoyed at having to pay back Mr. Hawkins for the next two years, and even more annoyed with the fact that people view him as a child more now than ever before. He decides to leave his house and retrieve the gun in which he had buried, not thrown in a river like he claimed. He forces himself to fire the gun with his eyes open until he empties it. In the distance, Dave hears a train, which he approaches and hops in the hopes that this will at last prove he is indeed a man. 

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It is March 1966 and Rosemarie Miletti rushes to her singing lesson. Her teacher, Maestro Barbieri, attempts to encourage her for her attempt to break into opera. However, he must comfort her as she explains how she is the oldest child and must care for her sister Mary, who is ill with active leukemia. At the end of the day, Rosemarie comes home to her mother's incessant chatter, helps to get dinner ready, and checks on Mary. Mary makes Rosemarie promise that when she becomes a big opera star that she won't forget about her. Rosemarie denies she'll become an opera star but Mary is insistent. That night, Mary sees a shooting star and quickly makes a wish for Rosemarie. After coming home on a stormy day, Rosemarie finds the house empty and a note telling her to "Come to the hospital now—″ There, Mary awakens and tells Rosemarie she wants to show her something. Mary tells her to follow the music and she'll see. Rosemarie leaves and heads down the hall, which becomes a different hospital hall as she proceeds. She walks outside and sees the date on a newspaper, which reads Saturday, March 22, 1986. She hails a cab and asks to go to the Met where she finds the performance, starring herself in La Traviata, to be sold-out, but also meets a woman who is standing in front of the "sold out″ sign attempting to sell two tickets. Rosemary buys one of them. Arriving at her balcony seat, Rosemarie discovers that the person onstage is indeed herself. After the performance, there is a huge crowd that waits to see her but no one is allowed backstage. As Rosemarie ponders how to get in her other sister Dorothy tells the security guard she is "on the list" and he lets her inside. On a hunch, Rosemarie tells the guard she's Mary Miletti and she thinks she's on the list. He confirms that she is and lets her in to meet the opera star. Rosemarie stands at the dressing room door and listens to her future self discuss her upcoming birthday party with Dorothy. Her future self instructs Dorothy to leave the door open when she leaves and as she puts on a pendant with Mary's picture in it she looks back at the open door and remembers herself from not long ago. 1966 Rosemarie hears Mary's voice calling her from the hospital and hurries back to her own time. Mary gives Rosemarie a pendant with her picture in it and says that it was her wish that Rosemarie would become a big opera star. Mary dies and Rosemarie mourns with the rest of the family but knows that her destiny as an opera star awaits. The final scene shows her practicing with Maestro Barbieri. 

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"Miriam" is about a 61-year-old widow named Mrs. H. T. Miller who wants to spend the remaining years of her life alone in her apartment near the East River after the death of her husband, H. T. Miller. She is very lonely, has no friends to speak of and does not keep in touch with any of her relatives. One day, going into a movie theater, she meets a young, intelligent girl named Miriam. Mrs. Miller is intrigued that the girl's first name is also Miriam. Miriam asks Mrs. Miller to buy her a movie ticket because the usher will not let her in. She gives Mrs. Miller 25 cents (two dimes and a nickel) to buy her a ticket. They part as Mrs. Miller goes in search of a seat. When the movie ends, Mrs. Miller returns home. The following week, there is a knock on Mrs. Miller's door. When she answers it, she finds out it is Miriam, the girl she met at the movie theater. Mrs. Miller asks Miriam to go home, but Miriam refuses and asks Mrs. Miller to make her a jelly sandwich. After Miriam agrees to leave if given the sandwich, she goes into Mrs. Miller's bedroom and finds a cameo brooch that was given to Mrs. Miller by her deceased husband. She asks Mrs. Miller if she can keep it, and Mrs. Miller, despite her desire to stop her from taking it, relents in helplessness. Miriam then goes back to the couch and finishes her sandwich. Before leaving, Miriam asks Mrs. Miller for a kiss goodnight, but Mrs. Miller refuses. Miriam walks over to a nearby vase and smashes it on the floor, tramples the bouquet, then leaves. The next morning, Mrs. Miller leaves her apartment to spend the day shopping at various stores around New York City. Upon arriving home, Miriam returns, insistently ringing the doorbell while Mrs. Miller refuses to open the door. After the doorbell ringing ends, Mrs. Miller goes to her door to see if Miriam has left. Miriam has not, and rushes inside the house before Mrs. Miller can close the door. Miriam perches upon the couch and tells Mrs. Miller to bring in the large box she brought with her. Out of curiosity, she does. While commenting on the cherries, almond cakes, and white flowers that Mrs. Miller bought while she was shopping, Miriam tells Mrs. Miller to open the box. All she finds are clothes and a second doll similar to the one Miriam was holding. Miriam then tells Mrs. Miller that she is going to live with her. A frightened Mrs. Miller goes to the apartment downstairs where a young couple lives. Mrs. Miller tells them that a young girl keeps on appearing and will not leave her alone. She convinces the man living there to check upstairs while his wife comforts Mrs. Miller. The man returns downstairs and says that there is no girl upstairs. Mrs. Miller asks if there was a large box, and the man says that there wasn't. Mrs. Miller goes back upstairs to find no one is there. Scared more than ever at the startling emptiness of the house, she slumps onto the couch, drained. She closes her eyes and calms down, reminding herself that she is Mrs. H. T. Miller, the woman who lives alone and does everything for herself. She then becomes aware of another sound, the sound of a silk dress ruffling. She stiffens and fearfully opens her eyes to see Miriam staring at her. The last line of the story " 'Hello,' said Miriam" is ambiguous, in that it is unclear which Miriam is speaking. 

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In New York City in 1853, 8-year-old Dimples is a Bowery busker living with her pickpocket grandfather "Professor" Eustace Appleby. She is hired to entertain at a soiree in the Washington Square Park home of wealthy widow Caroline Drew. Mrs. Drew is so charmed by Dimples she opens her home and heart to the child, providing her a life of comfort and plenty. Mrs. Drew's nephew Allen, a theatrical producer, abandons his sweetheart Betty Loring for haughty actress Cleo Marsh. His family is scandalized, but Allen pursues his goal of staging a brand-new play, Uncle Tom's Cabin, with Dimples portraying Little Eva. During rehearsals, Dimples longs for her grandfather and returns to his humble dwelling, refusing to budge without the old man in tow. Mrs. Drew traces Dimples to the Bowery and a solution is found to the impasse. Allen realizes he loves Betty and is reunited with her. Dimples ultimately appears in New York City's first minstrel show. 

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Alan Desland (Rupert Frazer) is an English antique dealer who specializes in ceramics. A solitary man, he is a bachelor with no romantic ties. On a business trip to Copenhagen, he hires a German-born secretary, Karin Foster (Meg Tilly), to do some clerical work—she is fluent in English, Danish, and German. Alan's attraction to Karin is immediate, and over the coming days, he falls deeply in love with her. Karin is an attractive, sensuous, and mysterious woman who reveals little about herself. Her actions reflect both a quiet sensitivity (crying during a classical concert) and a dispassionate coldness (breaking the neck of an injured seagull). During a conversation about Karin's unmarried friend Inge and her child, Alan makes an offhand comment that he would have trouble marrying a woman with a child—the remark clearly upsets her. Before leaving Copenhagen, Karin expresses her love for Alan, who responds by proposing marriage, and Karin accepts. Alan returns to England and meets with his mother, who expresses concern that they know very little about Karin's family or background. When Karin arrives, Alan begins to notice her strange behavior—frightened by the sound of children and fearful of the dark. As they prepare for their wedding, Karin states she cannot be married in a church. Karin's playful sensuality, however, overwhelms and enchants Alan. Alan and Karin soon travel to the United States on holiday and get married in a civil ceremony in Florida, where they spend their honeymoon. While swimming in a lake, Karin sees a body beneath the water, but Alan confirms it's only an old log. When Alan and Karin return to England, she continues to captivate him and their entire social circle, engaging in discussions of philosophy and religion. At one dinner party, she asks Alan's best friend and vicar, "Can anything be forgiven?" He tells her yes, if a person truly wants to be forgiven. Alan suspects there is something deep and troubling in her—some dark secret or hidden guilt. One day at an auction, Karin bids on an odd lot that contains a rare statuette of a girl in a swing. Overjoyed at the find, Alan authenticates the piece at Sotherby's which estimates its value at over £200,000. He becomes even happier when the initial impotence of his wedding night gives way to an unbridled sexuality between the two. In conversations with Alan and the vicar, Karin explores the connection between spiritual love and physical love—a notion she believes is absent in Christianity but embraced by pagan cults. Soon after, Karin tells Alan she is pregnant. Alan's initial joy is offset by strange events and apparitions. He sees a green tortoise toy appear and then disappear, and he hears a child's voice on the phone—something Karin also hears. Karin tells Alan she wants to receive Holy Communion. At Mass she is disturbed by the vicar's sermon on the commandment against killing, and then at the communion railing, she takes the eucharist in her hand, but does not receive it, and soon collapses. At home Alan tries to reassure her that whatever's past is past, but she says, "Nothing is past." Karin continues to hear a child crying in the garden. When Mrs. Taswell comes to deliver letters, Alan also hears the child crying in the garden. They go to investigate and find a doll faced down in the water fountain. Alan returns to find Karin hysterical. Realizing she knows what is causing these strange events, Alan shuts all the doors and windows, and closes the drapes, but the cries continue in the garden during a violent storm. Alan sees the green tortoise toy again in the bedroom. The next day, Karin asks Alan to take her away. Before leaving, he discovers the receipt for the green tortoise toy and realizes to his horror that she bought it for her daughter just before killing her, out of fear that Alan would reject her with a child. Realizing the damage caused by his "careless words" in Copenhagen, Alan cries out, "May God have mercy." They drive to the beach, where she walks into the surf. She pours water over her head in a gesture of baptism, and he tells her he knows what she did. She takes her clothes off, hands him her wedding ring, and they make love on the beach. As the waves roll over them, she faints in his arms. At the hospital, Alan watches over her, hearing her last words in German, "I had no pity." The next day he is told she died during the night. The doctor confirms she had an ectopic pregnancy, and that she had previously given birth. At an inquest hearing, while giving testimony, Alan sees an apparition of Karin in a hooded cloak at the back of the courtroom. When he realizes it is just an apparition, he breaks down in tears. Haunted by his careless words, Alan understands that his "need for a tidy life" resulted in the tragedy. When he returns home, he hears Karin crying in the garden. 

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The novel is a planetary romance which stars Esau Cairn, an Earth-man of great physical strength and prowess. The novel begins narrated by scientist Professor Hildebrand, who describes Cairn's life on Earth prior to traveling to Almuric. Cairn is described as an honorable man who was "born out of his time" in terms of his temperament and physical abilities. He attempted brief careers in college football and boxing, but had to abandon both due to severely injuring opponents due to his incredible strength. From then, he became a wanderer, seeking his place in the world but unable to find one. After an altercation with a corrupt political official that left the official dead, Cairn became a wanted fugitive of the law. In an effort to hide Cairn from a confrontation with the law, Professor Hildebrand used an experimental teleporter to send Cairn to the planet Almuric. Upon arriving on Almuric, Cairn battles a Gura, ape-like humanoids that inhabit the planet. Despite the Gura possessing greater physical strength, Cairn was able to defeat him using his boxing skills. After taking the Gura's sword, he then lives off the land for a long period of time, taking his already incredible physical abilities to new heights and learning to hunt and fend off the wild beasts of Almuric. After attempting to save another Gura from an attack by a "sabretooth leopard", Cairn decides he needs human companionship and decides to seek civilization. He comes to the city of Koth and is taken prisoner by the inhabitants. There, he learns that despite the males being very hairy and ape-like, the women have hairless bodies and are beautiful by human standards. The explanation for this is that the male Guras endure all hardships and evolved to be powerful and animalistic, while female Guras are shielded from hardship and evolved to be soft and beautiful. While in captivity, Cairn notices he has captured the interest of Altha, a beautiful Gura female, and becomes infatuated with her. Cairn learns that the Gura who he defeated upon entering Almuric was Logar of Thurga, who is from a rival tribe and considered to be one of the finest warriors on Almuric. This claim leads to the Koths offering Cairn the opportunity to join their tribe if he can defeat their finest warrior, Ghor the Bear, in a wrestling match. Cairn succeeds in defeating Ghor and is welcomed to the tribe. Cairn enjoys life with the Koth and feels he has finally found a world in which he belongs. While on a hunt, he discovers that Altha has left the city of Koth and seeks another life. He decides to escort her back to Koth but on their return, they are overtaken by a pack of Yagas. The Yagas are described as athletic winged men, with hawk- like faces and shiny black skin. Despite Cairn's efforts, Altha is kidnapped by the Yagas. Cairn captures a Yaga and forces him to carry him in pursuit of the Yaga pack. Upon arriving at the Yaga camp, he sees that they have been eviscerated by beasts described as having bodies "like those of deformed apes, covered with sparse dirty white fur. Their heads were doglike, with small close-set ears. But their eyes were those of serpents--the same venomous steady lidless stare." The beasts have captured Altha, who Cairn rescues after defeating them and a large spider-like creature. Attempting to journey back to Koth, Cairn and Altha are captured by warriors of Thugra led by Logar, who seeks vengeance for his earlier defeat by Cairn. Cairn is chained and imprisoned in a Thugra prison, while Altha escapes and stays hidden, aided by sympathetic women in the city. Thugra is attacked by a massive army of Yagas, who raid the city to capture female slaves. The city is destroyed and in the carnage, Altha attempts to aid Cairn in an escape. Logar enters the cell and is killed by Cairn, who is still chained. Cairn and hundreds of women are captured by the Yagas; some are butchered and eaten by the Yagas while others are flown to Ugg, the Yaga capital city. Cairn is kept a prisoner in Ugg, where he learns that the female slaves are treated with inhuman cruelty, often tortured, killed, or eaten at the whims of the Yaga people, who possess little to no compassion or sympathy for other races. The Yaga women are wingless, having their wings clipped at an early age so that they remain dependent and subservient of the males. Only one Yaga female is allowed to keep her wings, the queen Yasmeena. He also learns that other humanoid races exist on Almuric; he sees slave women of other races and the Yagas are served by a less intelligent species of blue humanoid called Akkas, who live at the base of the cliff which holds their city and worship the Yagas as gods. The Yaga queen Yasmeena takes an interest in Cairn due to his unusual physical appearance (unusual by Almuric standards—hairless with white skin and blue eyes). During a meeting in her chamber, Cairn feigns drunken unconsciousness and Yasmeena leaves to attend other matters. He discovers a tunnel in the floor which leads to a temple in which the Akkas worship the Yaga. He escapes the city and heads to Koth, to assemble an army to return to Ugg and rescue the women. On his journey home, he chances to meet the Koth army, who are on their way to battle the Khor, a rival tribe. He convinces both to put aside their differences temporarily to attack the Yaga capital city. As many have had wives and female relatives kidnapped by the winged men, they agree to join forces. Cairn leads this combined army of 9,000 Gura warriors to the city of Ugg, where they enter through the Akka temple. They attack the Akka and Yaga people, rescuing as many female slaves as they can. In city walls, the confined areas give the Gura fighting men the advantage, as the Yaga cannot take to the air and use their traditional fighting tactics. Seeing her people defeated, Yasmeena unleashes what she describes as "the ultimate horror", a large creature described as resembling a gigantic slug with a fringe of tentacles all about its body that emit sparks and flashes of blue flame. Cairn defeats this creature and loses consciousness from wounds accrued in the battle. He wakes to learn that they have lost approximately 4,000 men in the battle but have saved 50,000 female slaves. All women are escorted back to their home cities by the Guras warriors. Cairn and Altha are now in a committed relationship and the cities of Koth and Khor are allies for the first time in history. 

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John Lomax is an ex-Special Forces trainer whose sister is attacked and murdered by serial killer Martin Kagan. Kagan represents himself at trial, calling in testimony from Dr. Alice Barnes that the murders were committed by Martin Mirman, one of Martin Kagan's other personalities. He is nevertheless sentenced to electrocution. John Lomax breaks into the prison where Kagan is being held to seek his own justice at the same time that Kagan is conducting a prison break of his own. 

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A father and son go hunting in the mountains. Before they can begin hunting, which the son does not want to do anyway, they are killed by flying jellyfish-like creatures, which penetrate their skin with needle-tipped tentacles. Some time later, four teenagers, Tom, Greg, Beth and Sandy, hike in the same area, ignoring the warnings of local truck stop owner Joe Taylor (Jack Palance). A group of Cub Scouts is also in the area; their leader (Larry Storch) is also killed by the alien creatures, while his troop runs into an unidentified humanoid and flee. The teenagers set up camp at a lake, but after a few hours, Tom and Beth disappear. Sandy and Greg go looking for them and discover their bodies in an abandoned shack. They drive away in their van, while being attacked by one of the jellyfish which tries to get through the car's windshield. After they get rid of it, they arrive at the truck stop. Greg tries to get help from the locals, but they do not believe him, except for Fred 'Sarge' Dobbs (Martin Landau), who is a mentally ill veteran. Meanwhile, Sandy encounters the humanoid and flees into the woods, where Joe Taylor finds and returns her to Greg. While they discuss the situation, the sheriff arrives, but Sarge shoots him and begins to become more paranoid. Greg and Sandy leave with Taylor, who reveals he has been attacked by the humanoid before and secretly keeps the flying jellyfish as trophies. They search for the shack and once there, Taylor goes inside to only find the bodies of Tom, Beth and the cub scout leader. They discuss waiting for the creature when Taylor is attacked by another "jellyfish". The young people run once again, leaving him behind as ordered. They stop a police car and get into the back seat, but find Sarge driving. He abducts them, believing them to be aliens. Greg plays along, telling the deranged man that an invasion force is on the way, thus distracting him enough to toss him aside, run away with Sandy and jump from a bridge. They make it to a house where they find new clothing and try to relax. In the night, Sandy wakes up and goes looking for Greg, only to discover that he has been killed by the alien, who is still in the room. She flees to the basement and the creature is about to get her when Taylor arrives and saves her. On the way to the shack, he tells her about the creature: it is a tall extraterrestrial (Kevin Peter Hall) who hunts humans for sport to keep as trophies, using the living creatures as living weapons against its prey. They wait at the shack to ambush the hunter with dynamite when Sarge shows up, almost spoiling their plan. He and Taylor fight, and Sandy is about to hit Sarge from behind when the alien arrives and kills Sarge. Taylor then shoots the creature, with little to no effect. Realizing the last chance of success, he lures it to the shack, which is then blown up by Sandy. She alone survives the horrible night. 

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Francis Warren (Errol Flynn) appears to have a normal life handling investments, but secretly he writes lurid detective novels under the pseudonym F.X. Pettijohn. His other career is unknown to wife Rita (Brenda Marshall) or to anyone but Inspector Mason (Alan Hale), who mocks the books, insisting that true crime is much more difficult to solve. A man named Leopold Fissue (Noel Madison) turns up, wanting Francis to help him turn uncut diamonds into cash. Fissue is then found murdered on a yacht. The trail leads Francis to burlesque dancer Blondie White (Lee Patrick), who becomes his prime suspect. But her dentist, Dr. Davis (Ralph Bellamy), gives her a solid alibi. Rita becomes sure that Francis is having an affair. Blondie turns up dead after asking Francis to retrieve a satchel from a locker. Rita thinks Francis must have killed Blondie, while her husband believes just the opposite to be true. The diamonds are in the suitcase. Francis concludes that only one man could be behind all this—Davis, the dentist, who promptly tries to kill Francis before the police can figure things out. 

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Born into a taboo relationship that neither of her grandparents supported, having a Jewish father and black mother who divorce before she is two, Oreo grows up in Philadelphia with her maternal grandparents while her mother tours with a theatrical troupe. Soon after puberty, Oreo heads for New York with a pack on her back to search for her father; but in the big city she discovers that there are dozens of Sam Schwartzes (her father's name) in the phone book, and Oreo's mission turns into a wickedly humorous picaresque quest. The ambitious and playful narrative challenges accepted notions of race, ethnicity, culture, and even the novelistic form itself; its quest theme is inspired by that of the Greek tale of Theseus. Ross uses the structure of the Theseus myth to both trap Oreo and allow her to reinvent it. Oreo's white father, who abandoned her, forces her to live out this inherently white, male narrative. However, the trope of lost patriarchy is essential in black cultures so Oreo can reappropriate the myth and make it entirely non-foreign. Furthermore, Oreo reinvents the archaic myth by living a black narrative through it, suggesting that blacks can reappropriate themes from the white culture they are forced to live in. The search for paternity within the Theseus myth is essentially futile since Oreo gains nothing from finding her father, which undermines the importance placed on the search for paternity. In the end, Oreo witnesses her own father's death as he falls from a window. She confronts another girl on the street in front of her father's dead body, presumably another one of his daughters. 

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The year is 2019 and the alien invasion is here. In a surprise attack, the aliens decimate Earth's military forces. Mankind's only hope is the surviving orbital space carrier Omaha and its squadron of F-177 pilots. As the young and inexperienced member of the squadron, it is the protagonist's job to drive the aliens from the planet. 

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The Wyrmling Horde is an epic fantasy novel set in a land where men can bestow to each other a number of endowments, granting the recipient of the endowment attributes such as increased strength, a more acute sense of hearing, or better eyesight. The novel combines traditional sword and sorcery elements of fantasy with its own unique magic system of endowments. 

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It is set in the early 1960s and revolves around George (a Yorkshire farm labourer involved in a production of the York Mystery Plays who withdraws from the production), John (the production's shy assistant director who tries to convince him to come back), the love affair between them, and the clash between regional and London culture. 

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Naeka Fujiwara is the granddaughter of a billionaire and the heir to his fortune. She is pursued by those who desire her inheritance. In order to protect her from harm and ensure her proper upbringing, the amazing and fearsome Kogarashi, the masked Maid Guy, is summoned. 

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Ankit (Nikhil) is a carefree youngster who likes to live on his terms. He aspires to become a renowned musician. His parents support him. Pallavi (Megha Burman) is an exact opposite of Ankit. While Ankit believes in living life to the fullest, without a care in the world, Pallavi is seen working hard all the time. She is a software engineer in a big multinational. The two are childhood friends and they have three other common friends. One wants to go to the US at any cost and is all the time making trips to the US consulate for a visa. The other wants to do social service. The third dreams of starting his own business but does not know what business to enter. Over a period of time, Ankit and Palavi fall in love. But Pallavi does not like the carefree attitude of Ankit and his casual approach to life. She chides him for this and tells him that unless he takes his life seriously, she will leave him. They part ways at the interval bang. As luck would have it, Ankit manages to land an offer to compose the music for a programme being conducted by UNICEF for an orphanage. His friend manages to land a job at the same orphanage. The orphanage is run by Sita. Ankit becomes a big star after the success of his musical show. He is now a celebrity. Pallavi still longs to be with Ankit but is afraid to meet him as she thinks that Ankit will misunderstand her for coming to him only after seeing his success. Ankit also misses Pallavi very badly. The friends then plan a party and invite both Ankit and Pallavi, with the hope of bringing them together and become successful. The film argues that happiness is a choice and that it is right around us only if we choose to pick it. It opened to good reviews. 

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A small group of terrorists have seized the British ambassador to the fictitious country of "Scandinavia", and are holding him hostage in his residence. Scandinavia's head of security, Col. Nils Tahlvik (Sean Connery), wants to take an uncompromising position, but he is overruled by the governments of both Scandinavia and Britain, who insist that all of the terrorists' demands be met. Boeing 737-200 of Mey-Air, prominently featured in the film A passenger aeroplane arriving at the airport of Scandinavia's capital city is hijacked by another small group of (purported) terrorists, led by Ray Petrie (Ian McShane). The aeroplane ends up parked on an isolated taxiway, and Petrie demands that he be put in touch with Martin Shepherd (John Quentin), leader of the group holding the British ambassador hostage. Petrie, who is known by Shepherd, convinces Shepherd that his group and his hostages should leave on the hijacked airplane, not on a military plane as originally planned. Tahlvik and his group of military commandos make several attempts to thwart the terrorists' plans, but nothing seems to work out for them. At the last minute, Tahlvik figures out that the "terrorists" on the airplane are actually British secret operatives intent on capturing Martin Shepherd, and that the British officials have been misleading the Scandinavian authorities and undermining Tahlvik's efforts to capture the two terrorist groups. He boards the aeroplane alone just before it is to take off, precipitating a shootout between the two groups that leaves both Shepherd and Petrie dead. 

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The novel adventures in the lost world of Baal in Arabia, which is inhabited by dinosaurs. 

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When Ted rejects Barney's attempts to reconcile with him, Robin is confused as to why he is more mad at Barney than her for their one-night stand. Lily reasons that it is because Ted is more focused on his relationship with Stella. After two months, Ted wants to take things to the next level, but she is reluctant and tells Ted a secret: she has not had sex in five years. When Stella comes over on the night that she is meant to have sex with Ted, Marshall and Lily accidentally reveal they know her secret. Stella is upset that Ted betrayed her trust and says she cannot trust him. When Ted asks Stella if she is looking for a reason not to sleep with him and whether it scares her that things between them are getting serious, Stella storms off without answering. Barney tries to find a "rebound bro" to whom he can be a wingman to help him get casual sex with women. He puts applications up on his blog and receives few responses except for an enthusiastic proposal from his colleague Randy. After unsuccessfully resorting to calling up old friends and previous wingmen, he decides to be the "bro" to Randy and give him a chance. Randy hasn't had sex in thirteen years and Barney is repeatedly unsuccessful at getting him together with a woman, since Randy is uncomfortable with talking to women, and gets nosebleeds whenever he gets an erection. Barney then enlists Robin's help to make Randy comfortable with small talk with women, telling Robin that he may have a sex tape with her to convince her. After another bad attempt, Robin points out that Barney is trying to fill the void left behind by Ted by rushing into wingmanship with Randy as a rebound bro. Barney agrees and tells Randy it isn't working out, but when Randy admits he was a police officer, but was fired for incompetence, Barney, knowing being in the 'force' impresses women, finds a woman who takes Randy home with her. However, he gets emotional when Robin tells him that Ted doesn't know what he's missing. Stella comes to Ted's house and admits that Ted is right: she was looking for a reason not to get too close, but has realized that she is ready to take the next step with him. Ted and Stella's relationship goes even further than expected as Ted meets Stella's daughter and gets to know her. Stella tells Ted that her sister is still in town and can take care of Stella's daughter. Stella and Ted rush to a motel, where they consummate their relationship. When Ted jokingly picks up the phone to tell Marshall and Lily about it after the deed is done, Stella pushes him off the bed in a lighthearted manner. 

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John (James LeGros) is an unemployed young man, living alone and trying to pay hospital bills for his brother and only family. The film is told as a narrative delivered by John under the pessimism of the early 1990s. A misanthropic shut-in, he deals with his personal issues through a series of disjointed and sometimes imaginary encounters with television personalities, dead relatives, a former liberal turned investment banker, drug users and the unemployment office. Each chapter is bears a varying degree of social commentary. The film climaxes as John loses hope, and his search for meaning turns to self-destruction. John is finally rescued by the charity of an old friend, then resolving to leave Los Angeles and start his life anew. 

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Stephen, whose father was bodyguard to his Lord of Suffolk, is under taken into the Lord's household when his stepfather remarries and his sister enters a convent. Stephen is keen to learn and to enter the University at Oxford under the patronage of his Lordship's chaplain, but he becomes embroiled in some mild political intrigue when he believes he has let a copy of an indiscreet letter fall into the hands of his Lordship's enemies. 

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Troels Rolff, a young architect (played by Lau Lauritzen Jr.), is questioned as a suspect for the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl. He pleads his innocence, and yet he is unable to explain what he was doing the day of the murder. Rolff's world breaks apart as those closest to him – his wife, his father, his pastor and his friends—react to his arrest with varying degrees of suspicion. Even when cleared of the charges, the question remains if he can ever return to his former life of joy and innocence. 

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On the way home from a conference in Paris, Mr. Johansen accidentally finds himself in possession of an insignificant little French book. He has no idea where the book came from or what it concerns, but he decides he should secretly smuggle it through customs. Thereafter, the book passes through the hands of 5 different people, and causes unexpected conflicts, suspicions and misunderstandings for each of them. 

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Stefanos (Sakis Rouvas) is the frontman, guitarist, and soul of the incredibly popular rock band Alter Ego. In recent years, the band has had groundbreaking success, and their potential surpasses those of international standards. However, a twist of fate changes their path on their journey to fortune and fame, and the group is ultimately rocked by a heartbreaking tragedy, especially Stefanos who needs to find the will and determination to move on. 

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One summer mid-afternoon, Antoine (Darroussin) leaves his insurance firm job to meet up with his wife Hélène (Bouquet), as they are to fetch their kids (somewhere distant, but it is not explained as to exactly where they are or who they’re with), and then head on to his in-laws in the ‘Basque Country’ for two weeks vacation, and he wants to beat the traffic (and the two million cars that will be on the road). They arrange to meet at a local bar, but she is late arriving and it gets on his nerves. When she does arrive, it’s clear their relations have been strained for some time. She wants to go home to shower and have a quick cold dinner, so they do, further frustrating him. They finally get on the road, but after a while the horribly jammed traffic gets to him, and he decides to get off the highway and take ‘the back way’, at least to Tours anyway. He’s tired, but won’t let her drive, and they bicker. He stops several times along the way to grab a drink or two at local bars, while she sits in the car. He becomes slightly inebriated, further causing tension and argument among them. Her breaking point is reached when he stops again, and she threatens to drive on without him, telling him he can take the train and meet up with her later. He takes the car keys and goes into the bar, where, as he drinks, he sees a news item on the TV about a man who has escaped from a nearby prison. When he eventually leaves the bar and returns to his car, Hélène is not there, having left him a note: “I’m taking the train.” Somewhat frantic, he drives to the train station nearby to look for her, but the last train of the night has left. He drives on to the next train stop, but is delayed along the way at a police check-point, where they’re looking for the escaped convict. After arriving after midnight and twenty-five minutes too late at the train station, he yet again goes into a bar to drown his sorrows. He tries to strike up a conversation with a large, quiet man, who is not particularly interested in chatting and leaves while Antoine is not looking. Eventually leaving the bar, Antoine finds the large man outside, asking to hitch a ride on to Bordeaux, which Antoine allows. After being on the road awhile, Antoine realizes the man (Vincent Deniard) is the escaped convict, but this thrills him more than causing any fear. Antoine even openly admires the thug for his 'independent' spirit, and they even manage to get through another check-point. Antoine stops to buy gasoline, and manages to get a small bottle of whiskey too, downing it almost completely. The convict is annoyed at his drinking, but soon falls asleep, when Antoine, now drunk, runs off the road causing the car’s tire to go flat. The convict demands he change it, but Antoine passes out, so the convict does. The convict slaps Antoine awake, and they get back on the road to Bordeaux. Not much later the convict turns off the road, causing them to argue, and the convict beats Antoine. When he comes to, he finds the convict dragging him from the car out in the woods, likely to be killed and left there. Antoine says, "Make it fast and clean; I don't want to suffer." While the convict retrieves the tire jack from the car to use as a weapon, Antoine manages to hide. The convict finds him and they struggle, Antoine getting hold of the jack, which he uses to beat the convict to death. He tries to leave, but manages to disable the car, and eventually hitches a ride into town. After making arrangements to get the car fixed, he makes more than a dozen phone calls attempting to locate his wife. Finally succeeding, he discovers she is in hospital after being wounded in an ‘incident’ at the train station in Poitiers. He goes to the hospital where she is, whereupon police lieutenant Levet (Jean-Pierre Gos) notifies him his wife was beaten, robbed, and raped by the dangerous convict, whose body has now been discovered. Antoine explains to the lieutenant what had happened between himself and Hélène, but leaves out his subsequent ‘adventure’, of course. The lieutenant may suspect Antoine, but the issue is not pushed any further. Antoine suffers a flashback nightmare as Hélène is recovering, realizing the terrible things he has done. Antoine finally gets in to see Hélène, and apologises for everything. They reconcile and express their love for each other. After another day, leaving the hospital to fetch their kids, the last scene is the two of them driving happily and quietly down a country road. 

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The viewer is in an intergalactic spaceship named the S.S. Attenborough, run by a small green alien. 

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Madhav Apte (Sandeep Kulkarni) lives a lower-middle-class life in Dombivli area of Mumbai together with his wife Alka (Shilpa Tulaskar), son Rahul (Dushyant Wagh) and daughter Prachi (Srushti Bhoske). He travels to his workplace, Nariman Point, each day by train; and takes the Dombivli Fast local train to return home. Cheating, corruption, and dishonesty are something which he hated the foremost. He was a person with strong morals and principle , and lived life in step with it. Wherever he would see injustice and corruption, he would fight and argue; be it along with her wife or her daughter’s educator or perhaps his boss. Alka was jaded with Madhav’s adamant behavior and in a very fit of anger, had told him that his values and morals are only worth something if he can bring a change in society. Little did Alka know that her words would make a robust impact on Madhav! Then started the fight of Madhav against everyone who broke the foundations and was on the incorrect side of the law. Soon, his actions shook the complete city and brought a substantial change too. But how long will society allow Madhav to bring this change? And till what extent will Madhav achieve bringing a change? He's pushed to a corner by everybody who finds his path of righteousness too difficult to handle, and in some unspecified time in the future, he snaps. He goes on a rampage trying to correct everything that goes against his principles, and so starts mayhem on the streets of Mumbai, ultimately ending in a very tragic climax with him getting encountered. 

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Under the name Genghis, the protagonist unites the Mongol tribes, finally defeating the last alliance against his rule. After the killing of the Khan of the alliance, the defeated shaman decides to tie his fate to that of the new Mongol nation. Genghis orders all of the tribes to assemble the following summer in the pastures around the Black Mountain. The following summer sees the tribes gathered, waiting for Genghis to lead them where he will. They are anxious to be off, but he is determined to wait for the Khan of the Uighur to show up with the five thousand soldiers he wishes to have. While stuck in one place, the new Nation becomes impatient and tempers flare. In one incident, Genghis' brother Khasar is forced to defend his honour against the sons of a lesser Khan. He is helped by the young Tsubodai, who is rewarded later in the book. When his brother, Temuge, tries to intervene, he is forced to his knees. Genghis shows up on the scene, and tries to sort out the situation. Almost everyone has their honour satisfied, except for Temuge, who complains that he was made to kneel. Genghis uses his sword to cut the Khan's thighs, so he cannot stand in return. Close to the end of the summer, the Uighurs arrive. Their Khan submits privately to Genghis, which is taken as even more binding than the public oaths the entire Mongol nation takes under a ceremony presided over by the shaman. As the price for this support, Genghis promises the Khan of the Uighars that he will march against the Xia, and the Uighars will receive the assorted libraries of the conquered people. As well as military support, Genghis negotiates that his shaman and his brother Temuge be taught to read and write. The entire Mongol nation then begins to march southwards, to take the kingdom of the Xia. Facing them is the arduous crossing of the Gobi desert. Having crossed the desert the Mongol hordes attempt to take the kingdom of Xi Xia, the Mongols inexperience in siege craft shows when they are held at bay by the walls of Xi Xia, the division between the kingdom of Xi Xia and the Chin empire is also highlighted at this time. Eventually the Xia kingdom capitulates and Genghis wins a princess of the city as his bride as well as many other spoils of war. From this point on, there is tension between Borte (Genghis' first wife) and Genghis' second wife. Also highlighted in this book is Genghis' estrangement from his eldest son Jochi (who's legitimacy Genghis doubts) and the strife within Genghis' family that this estrangement causes. Khasar and Temuge are also featured greatly in this book as they take a trip with a captured Xi Xia officer down the Yellow River to a Chin city to find masons to help them break city walls. On their adventures they come across the leader of the Blue Tong (a criminal fraternity), who helps Ghengis' brothers in exchange for a promise that he will be leader of his city after it is conquered by the Mongols. Another character of note introduced in this book is Kokchu, a shaman who smells of blood and is very self-serving. He gains Genghis' trust and starts to teach Temuge the ways of a Shaman. During the course of Temuge's lessons, he becomes addicted to Opium, which Kokchu provides for him. 

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Joe Bell (John Garfield) becomes embittered after he is jailed for 16 months for something he did not do. Later, he gets into a fight with a crook (played by an uncredited Ward Bond) and is sentenced to a work farm for 90 days. There, he becomes friends with Mabel Alden (Priscilla Lane), which displeases Charles Garreth (Stanley Ridges), her stepfather and the farm's foreman. The two men fight, and Joe knocks Garreth out. Panicking, the young couple flee and get married, only to learn that Garreth has died and that Joe is wanted for his murder. Constantly on the move to avoid capture, Joe finally gets a break. He is in the right spot to take pictures of a bank robbery in progress. He uses them to get a job as a photographer at a newspaper run by Mike Leonard (Alan Hale). When the leader of the outfit tries to get the negatives, Joe saves Mike's life. Unfortunately, his own picture is put on the front page of various newspapers as a result. Joe tries to flee once more, but Mabel turns him in to the police, convinced that running away is the wrong thing to do. At the trial, despite a parade of character witnesses in Joe's favor, the prosecutor (John Litel) seems to have the upper hand. Defense attorney Slim Jones (Moroni Olsen) calls Mabel to the stand. She convinces the jury to declare her husband innocent. 

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The film follows the true story of Dr. Dennis Slamon (played by Harry Connick, Jr.), who helped develop the breast cancer drug Herceptin, over the course of 8 years from 1988 to 1996. Dr. Slamon is a research doctor at UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles), where he has developed the experimental drug Herceptin, which he believes will become a treatment for breast cancer. However, when the drug company stops funding for research, philanthropists, including Lilly Tartikoff (Angie Harmon) and Ronald Perelman help him continue tests of the drug. Funding was done with an initial donation from Perelman's Revlon charity, and continued over the years with the "Fire and Ice Ball" organized by Tartikoff. Eventually the drug company funds the research and the drug goes through three trials before gaining approval from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). Prior to the trials, the drug has a "mouse trial", with Nicole (Tammy Blanchard), a young mother with stage 4 cancer, receiving the drug first. Although her mother Elizabeth (Swoosie Kurtz) pleads with Dr. Slamon, Nicole is not included in the subsequent trials as she does not meet the protocols. The women in the trials, particularly the first trial, band together. They handle their disease and drug trial, with humor—Tish (Jennifer Coolidge), or with alternative therapy—Tina (Trudie Styler). The stories of Barbara (Bernadette Peters) and Ellie (Regina King) are followed throughout, as they go through the trials and eventual recovery. Some patients involved in the tests die, but ultimately Slamon's work with the drug changes the course of breast cancer treatment. 

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In Disney's animated adaptation of Prokofiev's masterpiece, in which every character is represented musically by a different instrument, a young Peter decides to go hunting for the wolf that's been prowling around the village. Along the way, he is joined by his friends Sasha the bird, Sonia the duck, and Ivan the cat. All the fun comes to end, however, when the wolf makes an appearance. 

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Laird Cunningham is a rich man who enjoys travelling to distant worlds in search of bizarre life forms. On the trip told in this story, Cunningham overhears the plotting of his two assistants to loot the ship. To avoid this, he forces a crash landing on an unnamed planet, sabotages the ship and escapes, leaving his assistants in the ship. Cunningham goes exploring and finds that the planet is very strange and orbits one of the fiercest suns in the galaxy (Deneb). The planet itself is quite similar to Earth's Moon, being airless and of a similar size, but due to the daily heating by its sun, the terrain is very different and appears strangely windswept. Cunningham also investigates the local life forms which include plants, herbivores, and carnivores. He dissects a few of the animals and finds that they have liquid metal for blood and that their eyes are more like noses, in that their eyes function as pinhole cameras with respect to the local gas molecules, which in the near vacuum travel in essentially straight lines like light rays. Cunningham realises that the animals navigate mostly by smell, since the extremely bright, undiffused sunlight would hamper an optical sense. Taking refuge in a cave, Cunningham watches his ship and his assistants as they attempt to repair it, welding up cracks in the ship's hull. However, they only work during the day and return to the inside of the ship at night. By night, Cunningham kills animals and collects their blood in grooves in the cave floor. The blood freezes in the cold of the night and he attaches the resulting small bars of metal to the remaining cracks in his ship's hull. The next morning, his assistants emerge to continue welding, which melts the bars of blood. The smell attracts many local predators, and Cunningham makes his way onto the ship in the commotion. Although the assistants easily fight off the alien animals, Cunningham locks them in the airlock as they attempt to return to the ship. He then sends out a distress call and sits back, as rescue will arrive in several hours. 

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Peony's father, a wealthy, cultured man with important political contacts, is planning a performance of The Peony Pavilion on his estate. This is seen by many as controversial because the opera may influence young women into imitating Liniang, starving themselves to death in hopes of finding love. Unfortunately, this is just what happens to Peony. She is deeply moved by the text and performance of The Peony Pavilion, having extensively written about her feelings and reactions to love in her copy of the text. On the evening of the opera performance, Peony accidentally meets a handsome young man. After three nighttime meetings, Peony falls in love, but she also falls into deep despair, feeling doomed because of being trapped in an arranged marriage. Following the example of Du Liniang, she starves herself to death, only to learn right before her death that the man her father has picked for her is Wu Ren, the man she loves. Most of Peony in Love takes place after Peony's death. Because her funeral rituals are not concluded properly, she becomes a "hungry ghost", who wanders far beyond the inner world of women that constrained her in her youth. In the process, she encounters a number of women writers who lament the difficulty of getting their voices heard in a male- dominated world. From her dead grandmother, she learns many painful details about her family's past as the Qing Dynasty violently replaced the Ming Dynasty, details later amplified by Peony's mother. Peony comes to learn about the courage and extreme suffering both older women experienced during the fighting and that the sternness her mother treated her with as a girl was only her attempt to protect her daughter from the evils of the outside world. Peony shows her enduring love for Ren by her influence on his second wife, although she later realizes that she may have gone too far and actually harmed the girl. Feeling guilty, she puts herself in self-exile, wandering around Hangzhou, until her mother convinces her to go back and make it up for Ren and his second wife. Peony chooses a young and neglected girl to "guide" and, influencing the girl's mother, she slowly molds her into a lovely lady. Ren, a lonely widower, marries the girl as his third wife. After years have past, the third wife starts reading Peony's and the second wife's writings, and after adding on to them she convinces her husband to help her publish them. Not long after Ren realizes that Peony was never given the appropriate funeral rites and finally completes them for her. Peony is no longer a hungry ghost but a spirit who looks forward with great joy to meeting her husband again in the afterworld. 

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In 1818 Hampstead, the fashionable Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) is introduced to poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) through the Dilke family. The Dilkes occupy one half of a double house, with Charles Brown (Paul Schneider) occupying the other half. Brown is Keats' friend, roommate, and associate in writing. Fanny's flirtatious personality contrasts with Keats' notably more aloof nature. She begins to pursue him after her siblings Samuel and Toots obtain his book of poetry, "Endymion". Her efforts to interact with the poet are fruitless until he witnesses her grief for the loss of his brother, Tom. Keats begins to open up to her advances while spending Christmas with the Brawne family. He begins giving her poetry lessons, and it becomes apparent that their attraction is mutual. Fanny is nevertheless troubled by his reluctance to pursue her, on which her mother (Kerry Fox) surmises, "Mr. Keats knows he cannot like you, he has no living and no income." It is only after Fanny receives a valentine from Brown that Keats passionately confronts them and asks if they are lovers. Brown sent the valentine in jest, but warns Keats that Fanny is a mere flirt playing a game. Fanny is hurt by Brown's accusations and Keats' lack of faith in her; she ends their lessons and leaves. The Dilkes move to Westminster in the spring, leaving the Brawne family their half of the house and six months rent. Fanny and Keats then resume their interaction and fall deeply in love. The relationship comes to an abrupt end when Brown departs with Keats for his summer holiday, where Keats may earn some money. Fanny is heartbroken, though she is comforted by Keats' love letters. When the men return in the autumn, Fanny's mother voices her concern that Fanny's attachment to the poet will hinder her from being courted. Fanny and Keats secretly become engaged. Keats contracts tuberculosis the following winter. He spends several weeks recovering until spring. His friends collect funds so that he may spend the following winter in Italy, where the climate is warmer. After Brown impregnates a maid and is unable to accompany him, Keats finds accommodation in London for the summer, and is later taken in by the Brawne family following an attack of his illness. When his book sells with moderate success, Fanny's mother gives him her blessing to marry Fanny once he returns from Italy. The night before he leaves, he and Fanny say their tearful goodbyes in privacy. Keats dies in Italy the following February of complications from his illness, as his brother Tom did. In the last moments of the film, Fanny cuts her hair in an act of mourning, dons black attire, and walks the snowy paths that Keats had walked many times. It is there that she recites the love sonnet that he had written for her, called "Bright Star", as she grieves the death of her lover. 

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Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho) is a Catholic priest who volunteers at the hospital, providing ministry to the patients. He is well respected for his unwavering faith and dedicated service, but he secretly suffers from feelings of doubt and sadness. Sang-hyun volunteers to participate in an experiment to find a vaccine for the deadly Emmanuel Virus (EV). Although the experiment fails, and Sang-hyun is infected with the seemingly fatal disease, he makes a complete and rapid recovery after receiving a blood transfusion. News of his marvelous recovery quickly spreads among the devout parishioners of Sang-hyun's congregation, and they begin to believe that he has a miraculous gift for healing. Soon, thousands more flock to Sang-hyun's services. Among the new churchgoers are Kang-woo (Shin Ha- kyun), Sang-hyun's childhood friend, and his family. Kang-woo invites his old friend to join the weekly mahjong night at his house, and there, Sang-hyun finds himself attracted to Kang-woo's wife, Tae-ju (Kim Ok-bin). Sang-hyun later relapses into his illness and wakes in dire need of shelter from the sunlight, having become a vampire. At first, Sang-hyun feels a newfound vigor but soon he is aghast to find himself drinking blood from a comatose patient. After attempting to kill himself, Sang-hyun finds himself irresistibly drawn to human blood. To make matters worse, the symptoms of EV return and only seem to go away when he drinks blood. Desperately trying to avoid committing a murder, Sang-hyun resorts to stealing blood transfusion packs from the hospital. Tae-ju, who lives with her ill husband and overprotective mother-in- law, Mrs. Ra (Kim Hae-sook), leads a dreary life. She is drawn to Sang-hyun and his physicality, and unable to resist odd desires for him. The two begin an affair, but when Tae-ju discovers the truth about Sang-hyun, she retreats in fear. When Sang-hyun pleads with her to run away with him, she turns him down, suggesting that they kill her husband instead. When Sang-hyun's superior at the monastery requests some vampire blood so that his eyes may heal and he may see the world before dying, in disgust Sang-hyun flees from the monastery. He moves into Mrs. Ra's house so that he may secretly bed with Tae-ju. Sang- hyun notices bruises on Tae-ju and assumes her husband is the cause, a suspicion she sheepishly confirms. Sang-hyun decides to kill Kang-woo during a fishing trip with the couple. He pulls Kang-woo into the water and claims to his superior that he placed the body inside a cabinet in a house at the bottom of the lake, putting a rock on the body to keep it from floating to the surface. Sang-hyun's symptoms return so he kills his superior at the monastery and feeds on his blood. A police investigation ensues. Mrs. Ra drinks often after her son's death, sinking psychosomatically into a completely paralyzed state. Sang-hyun and Tae-ju are haunted by terrifying visions of Kang-woo's bloated corpse. When Tae-ju lets slip that Kang-woo never abused her, Sang- hyun is enraged because he only killed Kang-woo to protect her. Teary-eyed, she asks Sang-hyun to kill her and let her return to her husband. He obliges by snapping her neck, but after feeding on her blood, decides he does not want to be alone forever and feeds her corpse his own blood. She awakens as a vampire. Mrs. Ra, knocked to the floor by a seizure, witnesses everything. Tae-ju quickly shows herself to be a remorseless monster, killing indiscriminately to feed, while Sang-hyun acts more conservatively, only killing when necessary. Their conflicting ethics result in a chase across the rooftops and a short battle. Some time later, Mrs. Ra manages to communicate to Kang-woo's friends that Sang-hyun and Tae-ju killed her son. Tae-ju quickly disposes of two of the friends, and Sang-hyun appears to eliminate the third. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Sang-hyun tells Tae-ju that they must flee or be caught. Before leaving with her, he makes a visit to the camp of worshipers who consider him the miracle EV survivor. He makes it seem like he tried to rape a girl, leading the campers to chase him away, no longer idolizing him. Sang-hyun then places Mrs. Ra in his car, and with Tae-ju, drives into the night. Back at the house, the third friend escapes, whom Sang- hyun only pretended to kill to protect her from Tae-ju. Upon waking from a nap in the car, Tae-ju realizes that Sang-hyun has driven to a desolate field with no cover from the imminent dawn. Realizing his plan to have them both burn when dawn breaks, Tae-ju tries to hide but Sang-hyun foils her every attempt. Resigning herself to her fate, she joins him on the car hood, and both are burnt to ash by the sun, as Mrs. Ra watches from the backseat of the car. 

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Søren Qvist, a village minister with a short-temper, is accused of murdering his unlikeable servant when the man disappears after an argument. Erik Sørensen, the local judge, reluctantly investigates but he is conflicted because he is happily betrothed to the minister's daughter, Mette. The judge becomes distraught as more and more witnesses offer evidence against the minister. The minister, although he doesn't remember any murder, believes the evidence is undeniable and decides to confess—condemning himself to death. The judge is forced to pass sentence—the pastor is beheaded—and Judge Sørensen's relationship with the woman he loves is destroyed. Twenty years later, the murder victim returns to the village. He reveals his alleged murder was a cruel hoax constructed by his brother as revenge for his rejection as a suitor for Mette. 

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Drawn by an invisible force, Sreekumar (Mohanlal) comes to meet his school-time friend, Govindan Kutty (Mukesh). That's where he meets with a girl, Rita Mathews (Nayanthara), whom he initially mistakes to be a prostitute. Later he comes to know that she is the spirit of a Medical College student who had disappeared a while ago. Sreekumar is the only one who is able to see her. Initially, his friends are apprehensive about him, but slowly they begin to believe him. Finally, Sreekumar, the spirit and his friends get together to unravel the mystery behind the disappeared girl. 

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Kings is set in the fictional Kingdom of Gilboa, a modern absolute monarchy. Gilboa is ruled by King Silas Benjamin, who originally formed the united kingdom two decades before from the three warring countries of Gilboa, Carmel, and Selah. He believes that he has been divinely anointed king, and he often cites the day when a swarm of monarch butterflies once landed on his head in the form of "a living crown" which called upon him to form the Monarchy and Kingdom. All is not well for Silas: his policies and actions are being manipulated by his queen's brother, William Cross, who holds substantial control over the royal treasury and also appears to be the major stakeholder as CEO/Chairman of Crossgen (which appears to have a large stake in the economy of Gilboa); his heir, Prince Jack, is a closeted homosexual, which could undermine the royal family; and Silas himself has a secret mistress as well as a young son with her. Events of the series are set into motion when young David Shepherd, a Gilboan soldier in a war against the Republic of Gath, single-handedly rescues a captive soldier from behind enemy lines and destroys a "Goliath-Class" tank with a shoulder fired missile launcher. The captive soldier is Prince Jack, and David not only becomes an instant star in the national media, but he also earns the gratitude of King Silas, much to the chagrin of the prince. King Silas brings David into the capital city of Shiloh where he is promoted to Captain and then maneuvered into the plum position of military liaison to the media. He soon finds himself in the midst of royal court politics with little initial awareness of the forces acting behind them. He also develops feelings for Silas's daughter, Princess Michelle, which she privately reciprocates. Queen Rose runs the royal household with an iron fist and does her best to keep the warring factions of the family from destroying the monarchy. She is the one person to whom the King will listen, while he will not hesitate to turn his back on or even order the death penalty for his own children. Queen Rose, in many ways, rules the Kingdom from behind the scenes. In the pilot episode, David, much like Silas years before, is set upon by a living "crown" of monarch butterflies, as Silas witnesses the event from a discreet distance. Silas has already been told that God no longer supports his reign, and this then implies that David is the divine choice as his successor. This troubles the King so much that he initially plots to have David killed. David, however, soon comes to interpret the appearance of the monarch butterflies as an omen that he is meant to serve King Silas, and the sovereign accepts this, progressively drawing David deeper into his court. Through the series, David and Michelle's romance blossoms, first secretly and then publicly when Michelle informs King Silas. Silas falsely accuses David of being a traitor because David lied to Silas about his relationship with Michelle. During David's imprisonment, Michelle learns that she is pregnant with David's child. The intervening episodes continue to use symbolism and images to add depth to the basic story line, such as casting shadows in the shape of a cross on David and other characters, historical and biblical stories being intertwined in the plot (David defeating the seemingly invincible Goliath tank), return of a prodigal son (or nephew, in this case), and King Silas making promises and pleas directly to God that are answered, but not always as he had hoped. There also are references to more modern themes, such as the Cold War, encroachment of technology in our lives, companies that perpetuate wars to make money, and national policy being influenced by holding the nation's treasury hostage. In the two-part season finale, William Cross orchestrates a coup with the intention of placing Jack on the throne as his puppet. Silas is shot twice, but survives. Although Silas has framed David for treason, David helps return him to power. Reverend Samuels, Silas' long-time spiritual advisor and confidant, is killed under William's orders but appears in posthumous visions to David, the Princess, and Silas (none of whom is aware that Samuels is dead), confirming to them that God has chosen David to be the next king. David flees to Gath on Samuels' advice, and Michelle is sent into exile to bear his child in secret. Silas declares that he is now God's enemy as dark storm clouds loom above his troubled kingdom. 

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Charles "Chick" Miller (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is a hobo released from jail for vagrancy, along with fellow drifter "Scrap Iron" Scratch (Guy Kibbee). The two men then head to the local railroad station "to catch a train out of town". Through a series of chance encounters with travelers in the main terminal of Union Depot, Chick becomes, in his own words, a "Gentleman for a Day" (the name under which the film was released in the United Kingdom). Entering Union Depot, Chick, steals or "acquires" a station official's uniform. Concerned that he will be caught impersonating staff he retreats into the public washroom, where he finds a suitcase left by a drunk passenger. Inside the suitcase are toiletries and a nice double-breasted man's suit that has a wad of cash in one of its pockets. After getting cleaned up in the washroom and changing into the suit, Chick uses the money to buy himself a much-needed meal at the depot's diner. Soon he meets Ruth Collins (Joan Blondell) sitting on a bench in the main terminal. She tells him that she is an out-of-work chorus girl, is broke, and desperate to raise the $64 train fare to Salt Lake City, where a job is waiting for her. Although she is telling him the truth, he thinks she is a prostitute, and he offers to take her to a nearby private "dining room" to treat her to dinner and to have an intimate time together drinking. There he becomes angry when she resists further advances after they kiss. He calls her a "phony" but begins to believe her story after she shows him a telegram with her job offer. Ruth admits to him that she is certainly "no Pollyanna" but not a prostitute. She then confides to Chick that she is worried about being followed by Dr. Bernardi (George Rosener), whom she describes as a "madman" and a fellow resident of the cheap boarding house where she had lived. She adds that the strange, obsessive doctor had "bad eyes" and had previously paid her to read to him in the evenings, namely lewd "European" publications that she found disgusting. Now feeling sorry for Ruth and describing himself as "Santa Claus", Chick tells Ruth he will give her the money she needs "with no strings attached". Meanwhile, back inside Union Depot, among the crowd is Bushy Sloan (Alan Hale), who presents himself as a German "musician" and carries a violin case. Soon he checks his case at the station's baggage area, depositing it there for temporary storage. The case, however, does not contain a violin; it is full of counterfeit money. A pickpocket later steals Sloan's wallet, which holds his baggage-claim ticket. The thief discards the wallet in an alleyway after removing its cash. While waiting for Chick outside the depot, Scrap Iron finds the wallet. It is not completely empty; the ticket is still inside it. Later he gives the ticket to Chick, who uses it to reclaim the violin case. Initially, Chick plans to pawn the case; however, when he opens it, he is stunned to find it full of money, not realizing it is all counterfeit. He hides the case and most of the bogus cash in a coal bin at a small building near the central depot and instructs Scrap Iron to stand guard while he ponders what to do next. Chick sees Ruth again and gives her some of the violin-case money to buy new clothes at a shop in the station. She too is unaware that it is counterfeit. While Chick is away, Dr. Bernardi sends Ruth a passenger ticket and a message to meet him in the designated train compartment. Believing the ticket is from Chick, Ruth goes there. When she finds Bernardi instead, she begins screaming. Chick breaks through the locked door, but Bernardi escapes through a window. As he runs across an adjacent railroad track he is struck by a passing train and killed. A dress shop clerk (Adrienne Dore) who had sold clothes to Ruth becomes suspicious of the cash she had used. The clerk decides to take the counterfeit bills to the station master. Both Ruth and Chick are then taken into custody by government agent Kendall (David Landau). Kendall has been alerted that Bushy, a known criminal, was at the station to pass the phony money to an associate; but he has no description of Bushy. He therefore believes that Ruth might either be Bushy or one of his associates. To clear her, Chick goes to retrieve the hidden violin case and is escorted by another agent, Jim Parker (Earle Foxe). The men are followed by Bushy, who shoots Parker, and flees with the case. Chick chases and catches him. All is eventually cleared up, and Ruth has a bittersweet parting from Chick, as she leaves on the train to Utah. The film ends with Chick and Scrap Iron walking together along the railroad track, away from Union Depot and back to their lives as hobos. 

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We see three tough-looking men renting an office in one of the better buildings of Claybourne City. Soon "The Creamery Betterment Association" appears on their door. They intend to force every dealer in the city to sign as members, dues to be one cent on every quart of milk sold in the city; and the dealers are to get this back by raising the price of milk three cents a quart. Then comes the technique for getting members; the vicious means resorted to in "stubborn" cases. Only one dealer, John Paige has the courage to hold out. He cooperates with the police, but weakens when his family is threatened. Police persuade him to wait, replace all his drivers with detectives, who arrest the gangsters when they do attack the trucks. Finally, the police surround members of the gang who are waiting in ambush to drill Paige's trucks with a "tommy" gun. This provides sufficient evidence, and the gang is arrested and sent to prison for 50 years. 

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The opening of the film uses the music of "Pop Goes the Weasel", which already indicates that this "epicurian epic" will entail much comedic content. The scene starts as Matthew E. Smudge calls his wife, Chloe, to inform her that he's bringing his boss and a customer home for dinner. Unstressed, Chloe enters the kitchen, expecting to tell the cook there will be two more for dinner; she finds a note. Apparently, her constant high-maintenance demands have caused "her culinary queen to quit." Chloe haplessly attempts to fix dinner herself. An hour has transpired and Chloe has burnt the roast beef, dropped a flour bucket on the dog (to which the narrator remarks, "Gosh, it ain't a fit night for man nor beast."), and ultimately turned the kitchen into a complete disaster. Pete Smith, as narrator, asks sobbing Chloe the whereabouts of a telephone. He decides to make a personal call to Prudence Penny, advice columnist for the Los Angeles Examiner. With 35 minutes before the husband and company arrives, Penny shows doubtful Chloe how to prepare a full course, mouth-watering meal with what is left in the icebox as well as applying unusual housewife remedies to salvage some of Chloe's cooking. The meal is prepared just in time for the arrival of Mr. Smudge, boss and customer. Chloe greets the guests as Smith whispers to Smudge, "Psst, your cook left this morning." Smudge's countenance drastically changes and is now in a dither about dinner; he knows how Chloe cooks. Smudge is surprised by the quality and taste of the courses Chloe has presented to him and his guests. Smith interjects that the entire course only cost Smudge a grand total of $2.83. As Penny secretly sneaks away, Smith also lies to Smudge saying Chloe cooked the entire meal herself. Of course, Chloe emphatically nods in agreement, much to her dog's disbelief. 

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Set in a small waterfront town in coastal Maryland, Swimmers is a film that focuses on Emma Tyler, a fiercely intelligent and observant 11-year-old who develops an ear problem requiring surgery that the Tylers can ill afford. Emma's father, Will, drinks a lot and lives hand to mouth as a waterman. Her mother, Julia, has become a miserable soul, trying to keep a household together on meager funds. She also suspects that Will is having an affair. Grounded, literally, from her favorite pastime, swimming, Emma is forced to look for alternative ways to pass those lazy summer days. When no one seems to be very interested in talking to Emma, she finds friendship with a troubled young woman, Merrill, who has returned to town looking to deal with her past. The sweetly innocent Emma allows the world-weary Merrill in some ways to reconnect with her own lost innocence, while Merrill, for her part, provides an oasis for Emma, who feels invisible at home in the eyes of her struggling parents. Added to this volatile mix of domestic strife is a love story desperately trying to emerge between Merrill and one of Emma's older brothers Clyde. However, Merrill's ugly past and pathologic need to be used threatens to resurface and destroy her newfound sense of purity. Will and Julia love their daughter immensely, but suffer from the financial woes of a poor fishing season, the sudden loss of Will's boat and Will's fierce pride in not having to ask for handouts. 

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Daddy's Home deals with a family where the father, Pete, is a copywriter who works out of his home office and is a stay-at-home dad to his son Elliot, while his wife Peggy is out in the working world. Events occurring in the comic strip are usually humorous and involve Pete and Peggy trying to make sense out of their living arrangements and finding time for each other, Elliot's own adventures with his best friend, next door neighbor Maria, and Pete trying to write on his computer, which is sentient and able to talk back to him as he deals with writer's block. Launched in April 2008 and with a combined circulation of more than 10 million readers, "Daddy's Home" is considered to be one of the most rapidly growing comic strips in the world. 

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Nancy Drew and her friend George are in Japan to attend the wedding of their Japanese friend Midori Kato. The twist is that Midori appears very upset on the eve of her wedding and disappears during the commencement of her wedding with Ken Nakamura. It's indeed very surprising to note that Nancy is able to understand and read a bit of Japanese as well. This pulse-pounding novel also shows us some highly dangerous events occurring with Nancy while she's investigating the case. Also added are Mick's and Nancy's old romance which provides us some great moments of reading. The twist which comes at the end of the novel is really exciting and unpredictable. A must read for all Nancy Drew Fans! 

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Months after a school shooting at an elitist prep school in small-town Massachusetts leaves fifteen students and faculty dead, Spenser is hired by the grandmother of one of the alleged killers, a rich old lady who firmly believes in her grandson's innocence: she is convinced that he is not the one of the two shooters who never lifted his ski mask in front of their victims and who somehow managed to disappear in the crowd without being identified. Both suspects are now in custody but unwilling to talk to anyone. Wherever Spenser turns, people are reluctant to co-operate with him, if not outright hostile. The local police chief considers the case closed as both perpetrators are under arrest, awaiting trial and have already confessed to the crime. The head of the school is concerned with the school's reputation, bans Spenser from the school premises, and prohibits students to talk to him should he accost them anywhere in town. Even the boys' parents and their respective lawyers do not wish to throw any more light on the matter. For Spenser, however, three decisive questions have not been answered yet: where the two youngsters got the weapons from and how they were able to pay for them; where and from whom they learned to shoot; and why they planned and carried out the massacre in the first place. The pupils Spenser meets at one of their hangouts, however, are thrilled to disobey their head teacher and collaborate with a private eye. This is how Spenser learns where the less fortunate youngsters in town who attend the local public school usually meet, that a young man of mixed ethnicity supplies them with drugs, and that he might also have sold weapons to the shooters. Spenser is soon able to answer his first two questions, but for the time being he sees no way to find a good reason why two 17-year-olds with no criminal record should go ahead and cause a bloodbath. Gradually, however, he realizes that the motive is more to do with parents and teachers than anyone is prepared to admit. In School Days, Spenser's close friend Hawk does not appear but is mentioned. Susan Silverman is away at a conference and only returns at the end of the novel to celebrate the successful conclusion of the case. Pearl, however, having been left behind by her mistress, is constantly present. 

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The narrative follows the story of twelve- year-old Adeline Mueller as she moves with her mom and five-year-old brother to Canada from their German home to move in with her father to start a new life. Adeline has not seen her father since she was eight and she is expecting a great and wonderful life in Canada from the description in the letters she has received from her father.Adeline's Dream Plot But Adeline's relationship with her father has been strained ever since he left her and the rest of the family to move to Saskatchewan.Donna Gamache's review of Adeline's Dream Her father worked in a bank in Germany and then, after being fired, decided to find a better life for the rest of the family in Saskatchewan. Finally Adeline's father had reported that he has started a splendid new life for the family. The book begins with Adeline, her mother, and her brother Konrad traveling by steamship and then by train from Germany to Saskatchewan. The family then arrives at Qu'Appelle. When Adeline arrives, the truth is revealed. Adeline's father now works on a farm bagging flour and doing the accounts which does not make enough money to provide a home. So the family lives in a soddle made of grass and earth. All her life Adeline had dreamed that one day she would be a singer but she feels that because her father has brought her into these horrible conditions, that her dream will be ruined making their relationship even more strained. Adeline soon learns that the richer townspeople do not take kindly to the immigrants that move to the area. But through all the prejudice, Adeline makes two friends, Kat and Henery, who are also immigrants. Kat helped Adeline fight off prejudiced bullies at their school. One day the farm where her father was employed is burned down and her father is forced to get a new job. Kat's family moves and Adeline is left to fight the bullies, especially a girl named Sarah: a girl who sings just like Adeline and takes her solo in the Christmas play. By the time of the play, Adeline has begun to get along with her father and Sarah allows Adeline to have the solo at the play and Adeline's dreams start to come true. 

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Vitório Palestrina is a playboy millionaire who passes his days sleeping with, abusing, and discarding women in a small village. After seducing a young woman named Silvia, he brutally rapes her, biting off one of her nipples in the process. He keeps the nipple in a glass case as a trophy. When his actions become public knowledge, he is actually admired for what he has done, while his victim is ostracized and tormented by the townspeople. Palestrina is acquitted of rape on the grounds of insufficient evidence and laughs at the victim when the judge gives the verdict. He commemorates his triumph with a party at which he proudly displays the severed nipple to his guests. Palestrina continues to seduce other young women until he develops a passion for Veronica, a beautiful young medical student who is not as susceptible to his charm. To obtain Veronica's love and loyalty, Palestrina must endure a more traditional courtship: Veronica requires him to proclaim love and propose marriage before she relents. When he finally does, Veronica allows Palestrina to consummate their affair with a long, passionate episode of lovemaking. As he settles into a peaceful post coital state, Veronica calmly reaches into her purse and removes a surgical knife with which she castrates him. She then has flashbacks which reveal that Veronica is Silvia's sister. Naked and covered in blood, Veronica slowly bandages Palestrina's wounds and says, "You promised me everything. I accepted." All the while, she envisions future times of bliss with her beloved sister. 

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Henry Carson (Van Johnson), a schoolteacher before the Civil War, shows up in a rural region of the Missouri hills. He spends the night with a family consisting of Gill MacBean (Thomas Mitchell), his wife Sairy (Selena Royle), and two of their children, Lissy Anne (Janet Leigh), and youngster Andrew (Dean Stockwell). Another son, Ben (Marshall Thompson), had run off to fight in the war; the family's hope that he will someday return is gradually waning. Gill does not welcome the stranger, unsure of his allegiance, but the others like the good-natured young man, especially Lissy Anne. Henry offers to help with the farming; the MacBeans desperately need more hands, but Gill remains very suspicious of his motives. A band had been burning the barns of those still loyal to the defeated Confederacy; the MacBeans had been the latest victims. Henry, however, proves to be a hard worker. When storekeeper and unofficial banker Cal Baggett (Guy Kibbee) visits the family to ask about repayment of a loan, Henry talks him into hosting a "play party", inviting everyone, regardless of affiliation, to help heal the rift in the community. Gill is strongly opposed to it, but Henry tricks him into bringing his family. At first, the two groups do not mix, but Sairy talks Northern sympathizer Dan Yeary (Russell Simpson) into dancing with her, breaking the ice. Soon, everyone is having a very good time. However, an argument breaks out about the playing of a tune associated with the North. To forestall a fight, Cal calls for a vote. Unfortunately, it is a tie. Gill calls upon Henry to cast the deciding vote. Henry is finally forced to reveal that he fought in the Union army. After that, the party quickly breaks up, much to the secret delight of John Dessark (Charles Dingle) and his son Badge (Jim Davis). Henry is no longer welcome at the MacBeans. He does not leave the area though; he starts building a schoolhouse. Eventually, Lissy Anne can no longer bear to be apart from Henry. She walks away into the night with him, without her father's knowledge but with her mother's approval, after Henry escorts her brother home from the schoolhouse where he had walked to attend class. Gill tracks them down with a bloodhound, intending to shoot his would-be son-in-law. When five masked nightriders approach, Henry strikes Gill unconscious and seizes his rifle. The horsemen start shooting to kill. Taking cover Henry kills four and captures the fifth after a lengthy footchase and fistfight at a burnt-out dwelling. It is Badge Dessark. He confesses that his father is behind the raids, not out of loyalty to the South, but simply for financial profit. With the Dessarks hanged, the community starts to heal. Finally, Henry reveals why he sought out the MacBeans. In a flashback, it is revealed that he first met Ben as they were walking across the hills to enlist in the war. As they traveled together singing and laughing, they became good friends. Approaching the turn-off signpost they decided in jest on a foot race to see who could be the first to reach it. Henry ended up on the north branch, with Ben on the south. They were momentarily silent on the choice that each had made. Henry proposed that they "take a five minute rest". Henry ultimately persuaded Ben into going north. Two days before the war's end, Ben was killed suddenly. Before dying, he made Henry promise to help the family with the crop harvest. After hearing Henry's quiet testimony of their deep trust and friendship, a teary-eyed Gill gives Henry and Lissy Anne his blessing to get married. Sairy reaches out to touch Gill's arm, offering agreement. As the wagon rolls down the road with Lissy Anne and Henry aboard, Andrew and the dogs climb in the back, to indicate that the picture is once more complete. 

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Set in 1911 and the growing protest against British rule in Ireland, young John Cassidy (Seán O'Casey)Sean O'Casey on Dublin Info page. is a labourer by day and a pamphleteer by night. When the pamphlets he has written incite riots, Cassidy realizes he can do more for his people with the pen than with the sword. He writes a new play, The Plough and the Stars, which he submits to the Abbey Theatre (which had already rejected another of his plays, The Shadow of a Gunman), and is surprised when W. B. Yeats, the founder of the Abbey, accepts and produces his new play. The opening of the play causes the audience to riot, and he loses many friends; but he is undeterred and is soon acclaimed as Ireland's outstanding young playwright. As early as 1907, performances of John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World resulted in riots by theatergoers, which had to be quelled by police.Seán O'Casey article on the similarity of The Plough and the Stars and Playboy riots. The real W. B Yeats, a friend of both authors, said similar words at or after both riots.John Millington Synge#Playboy Riots and After on riots and Yeats. Young Cassidy brings this parallel history (the riots of The Plough and the Stars and The Playboy of the Western World) to vivid life, tied together by the character of Yeats. 

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The Morning Gift tells the story of Ruth Berger, whose family is part of the Jewish Intelligentsia in Vienna. When the Nazis take over, the Bergers organize a student visa for Ruth to be sent ahead to England, not realizing that she will not be allowed to leave Austria because of her political leanings as a Social Democrat. When her father is suddenly arrested by the Gestapo, he is told to leave Austria within a week and while his family is able to escape to London, Ruth on a separate transport is stopped on the border by the SS and sent back to Vienna. Quinton Somerville, an English professor and scientist who worked with Professor Berger in the past, arrives in Vienna for an award ceremony and learns that Professor Berger has been dismissed. Trying to contact the family, he visits Bergers' home and discovers Ruth, who is desperate to find a way to escape to England. Several attempts to get a valid visa for Ruth fail and Quin realizes that the only way to get her out of the country quickly is through a marriage of convenience. The marriage has to stay a secret until Ruth receives British citizenship, but once safe in London, the annulment of the marriage takes much longer than expected. Ruth and her family try to re-establish their life in the world of refugees, using their humour to keep the terror and desolation at bay. When the university that Ruth is set to attend is forced to transfer her, the Quakers enrol her into Quinton's University. She ends up being lectured by her own husband by coincidence, alongside the snobbish and clever Verena Plackett, who has ambitiously set her sights on Quinton. Unaware of Ruth's marriage of convenience, her real fiance Heini, a talented pianist from Budapest, escapes to England, and the unfolding events put Ruth and Quinton's secret marriage of convenience on the verge of being discovered and betrayed. Desperately trying to cling to their moral values, Ruth and Quin deny their growing attraction for each other - then World War II breaks out and personal intentions become insignificant. 

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Pulikkattil Charlie is a nasrani from Travancore. He, after the death of his father, has struggled hard to create a business empire of his own. His father was a ruthless feudal landlord, who during his lifetime had done several heinous crimes. Charlie is now helping all those who had once suffered from the hands of his father. Charlie is married to a girl, whose father was killed by his father. Her brother Karnan returns from jail to avenge against Charlie. Karnan is unaware of the fact that his sister is married to Charlie. Later he realizes that Charlie is a good hearted person and gives up revenge and apologizes to Charlie. 

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David Owen, a New York lawyer, is constantly plagued by noise, particularly car alarms, but also burglar alarms and backup beepers. Despite putting up with the noise for years, including the formative years of his daughter, he finally breaks into a car to shut off its alarm, and is arrested by police. Owen and his family try living in the countryside for a weekend, but it only replaces one set of noise problems with another. Despite attempting to legally deal with the constant barrage of noise, he makes no progress, and continues to resort to vandalism, resulting in higher and higher court penalties and straining his relationship with his wife, who finally asks him to leave. While living on his own, Owen continues to destroy alarms, and progressively damages cars based on the number of violations. During this, he meets and begins a relationship with Ekaterina, a Russian student. She confronts him with the fact that he is "The Rectifier", a vigilante personality, complete with monikered stickers, that Owen has adopted. After falling in with him, Ekaterina convinces Owen to start a ballot initiative. While initially slow, the measure garners explosive popularity. Despite this, it is shut down by Mayor Schneer, who disdains the Rectifier and believes supporting the measure would encourage vigilantism. After being shut down through a loophole that prevents the ballot measure from appearing, Owen outfits a car with numerous alarms and much louder horns. He then parks in front of city hall and sets off his alarms, citing the various laws that so frustrated Owen initially when city hall security demands he turn them off. After enraging a nearby tenant, Judge Kornreich, his vehicle is attacked and the judge is mistakenly arrested as The Rectifier. Kornreich sues Owen for pain and suffering damages, and Owen goes to court. During his cross- examination of Kornreich, Owen intentionally alludes that his actions could be considered assault and battery, establishing a legal precedent. Owen is found guilty, though Kornreich obviously intends to be lenient on him. Having won a legal victory, Owen reunites with his wife. Walking out of the courthouse, an activist approaches Owen about blowing up a billboard TV that has been causing accidents and is an eyesore of the cityscape. A dual ending is provided, one in which Owen flees with the activist, and one where he politely declines to accompany her and gets into a cab with his wife. 

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For 500 years, the secret society of the Midnight Sun has been waiting for the homunculus, the man-made man, to rise, and now the evil Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais are going to throw Cass and Max-Ernest to the sharks unless they tell them where he resides. After going on an excursion with their science teacher, the two are tricked by Dr. L after receiving a note from Pietro saying he will meet them on a ship, from which they barely escaped. After finding out their teacher is really Owen, the accent changing member of the Terces Society, they are introduced to the great magician himself, Pietro, who gives them a mission. The mission is to find the homunculus before the Midnight Sun does. Max-Ernest also finds out that 'Terces' is "secret" backwards. Cass is grounded when she returns home, because she was missing for too long. While on the Midnight Sun ship, Cass and Max-Ernest discovers a strange ball (also called the sound prism), which enables her to hear all types of sounds by putting it to her ear and makes wonderful music when thrown in the air carefully. Cass also discovers a birth certificate. The name is unrecognizable, thus making Cass wonder if she was the wrong girl that the Terces Society wanted. She ignores it, even though it pains her, and continues her mission. Later Cass finds out she is really adopted and was delivered in a box on her grandfathers' doorstep. This time teaming up with a new classmate named Yoji (who prefers to be called Yo-Yoji), the three need to escape the grasp of their parents, and find the alchemist's grave. Cass convinces her grandparents to take her, Max-Ernest, and Yo-Yoji camping to find the homunculus. When they find the homunculus, they take it back to Terces, but it runs away when he finds out they don't have good food. Meanwhile, Amber gets to meet the Skelton Sisters, who are in cahoots with Midnight Sun, and they ask her to do something for her. Later that night, Amber is hidden in Cass' bushes, and Cass hears noises. She goes outside and plays the Sound Prism, thinking it's Mr. Cabbage Face. Amber records the song from the sound prism, which attracts the homunculus, and gives it to the Skelton Sisters. They play it at a concert, and end up trapping the homunculus and Cass. They end up back near Whisper Lake, where they went camping. The Midnight Sun took there because Lord Pharaoh's, the nasty man who created Mr. Cabbage Face, the homunculus, grave is there, and with it, all of his alchemist things, which is what Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L want in order to help their mission in receiving immortality. The Midnight Sun and Terces Society members engage in combat because the Midnight Sun had captured Cass and Mr. Cabbage Face, in the while Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji are up on a mountain, with the Sound Prism and a whip. Their plan is to create a sonic boom with it, and make the mountain avalanche onto the Midnight Sun and seal the coffin in the ground. When a huge boulder falls off the mountain from the sonic boom, Cass and Mr. Cabbage Face, now freed, are trying their own efforts to put the coffin back in the grave, but Mr. Cabbage Face screams to Cass to get out of the way, because the boulder was heading towards her. He pushes her out of the way, and Mr. Cabbage Face gets crushed into the ground with the coffin. The homunculus dies, due to, and is sealed with his maker in that grave forever. Midnight Sun members disperse, not before Dr. L can have a nice chat (surprisingly) with his brother/old friend. At the end, Max-Ernest, Cass and Yo-Yoji take the Oath of Terces, created by the Jester, the homunculus' only friend 500 years ago, and Cass' real great, great, great, great... great grandfather. 

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Bhakti (played by Krishna Gokani) is a poor girl living in a beautiful and wealthy village in Qatar. Everyone sees her as unlucky because her mother, Gayatri, eloped with her ex-husband after giving birth to Bhakti, and Bhakti's father Hasmukh refused to see her face or recognize her beauty. Bhakti's maternal grandmother, Kashiben, raises her single-handedly and tries to protect her from love to prevent emotional pain. As Bhakti grows up (now played by Jyotica Dholabhai), the show associates her with unluckiness and she becomes lonely. Whenever Bhakti asks about her parents and childhood, Kashiben says that they are in Ahemadabad. Meanwhile, she is presented with an idol of a baby, Lord Krishna, and is told that this will protect her in any situation. Bhakti accepts wholeheartedly and calls the baby Laddoo thief. Later, Kashiben takes Bhakti to Ahemadabad where Bhakti's father Hasmukh lives. Hasmukh, and his second wife, insult Bhakti and banish her from Ahemadabad. Meanwhile, in Ahemadabad, Devkiben, an elderly widowed woman, heads a rich and popular family known as the Nanavatis, with her six sons and five daughters-in-law. The eldest daughters-in-law of the family (Manjula, Parul, Apla, Jalpa, and Rajeshwari) want Mohan (played by Madhav Deochake), Devkiben's youngest son, to marry a woman who will demand anything from the family and act like an overlord. Bhakti marries into this family when her would-be elder sisters-in- law (jethanis) see her in Ahemadabad and choose her for their brother-in-law after seeing Bhakti's educated, gullible, and sensitive nature. The story flows onward, where viewers witness how she is treated in this family by her sisters-in-law. Manjula, Parul, Apla, Jalpa, and Rajeshwari try not to love Mohan and Bhakti, but in the end, good wins over evil, and they indeed start loving Mohan and Bhakti. The character of Padmini is introduced with her seven-year-old daughter, Shikha, who people believe is Mohan's illegitimate child. Padmini wants to marry Mohan, and obtain the assets of the Nanavati family. She plays many tricks to fulfill her evil intentions. In one scheme, she kidnaps Bhakti (now pregnant) to blackmail and marry Mohan, but she is caught by the police. The show then takes a seventeen-year leap, and now the story focuses on Mohan and later, Bhakti's daughter, Aastha (played by Vidhi Sindhwad), and Padmini's daughter, Shikha (played by Ekta Saraiya).''' The story then moves forward twenty years. This is after Bhakti and Mohan died from giving birth to a mentally-ill daughter, Aastha who the Nanavati family adopted. Aastha is raised by all her aunties with love and care and is a sweet and bubbly girl. Meanwhile, Shikha grows up to be ill-mannered like her mother. The show introduces Raj, Shika's love interest. Raj and Shikha love each other but cannot marry because an astrologer predicted Raj's first wife will die. They create a plan so that if Raj marries Aastha, it won't matter if she dies. After the marriage, Aastha shows no sign of death so Raj, with the help of Shikha and his aunt Rasila, plans to murder Astha and 'get-it-over- and-done-with'. Somehow, Aastha miraculously survives, and the five daughters- in-law succeed in taking their revenge from Raj and Rasila. After that, Mohan marries Vrinda. Even though she is a genuine and loving woman, the Navavati bahus think she is here to steal her money. They eventually realize that Vrinda is a nice woman. Then comes another twist; the family of the Nanavati's only daughter comes to steal money from the Nanavati house. They kidnap Aastha, but Vrinda rescues her and the kidnappers go to jail. The story ends with the Nanavati family celebrating Vrinda's pregnancy. 

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The plot of the story is largely the same as Shakespeare's Hamlet, but with a few twists in the tale. The story centres on Ophelia and her views on the activities taking place in Denmark and how they affect Hamlet. The author turns the story on its head by making Ophelia the heroine of the story. She is the one who comes up with the plans to save Hamlet. She is the one who proves to be brave while Hamlet appears weak and is left to follow. The novel is a retelling of Hamlet from Ophelia's point of view. 

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In Legacy of Blood, one of the player characters has inherited the reins of power in the realm of Fenholm, and must learn to cope with the problems of this new rulership. The player character's cousin Rolph is dead, and as his heir, the player character was willed his dominion: Fenhold. The Deep Swamp is threatening to engulf all of this new holding. People are seeing ghosts, disappearing without reason, and crops are suddenly blighted. The farmers don't like the swampdwellers, the swampdwellers don't like the farmers, and no one likes the halflings. It is the player character's task to make all this shipshape once again. 

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The film opens as the half- Apache Chato orders a drink at a bar. The bartender ignores him and serves the local sheriff who has arrived after Chato. The sheriff calls Chato a "redskin" and tells him the bar is for whites only. He moves behind Chato while hurling a stream of abuse at him. The sheriff's taunts escalate, and he draws his gun while saying that he is going to kill Chato. Chato whirls around and shoots the sheriff in the gut, killing him, in self-defense. He rides out of town on his Appaloosa. Former Confederate officer, Captain Quincey Whitmore, dons his Confederate Army uniform, and gathers a posse, mainly composed of other former Confederate soldiers and Southern/Confederate sympathizers. As Captain Whitmore and his posse ride across the country, it grows in number at each stop. It includes local ranchers and townspeople, along with a Mexican Mestizo ranch hand employed by one of these recruited ranchers, who is used as a scout and tracker. Chato calmly watches the posse's progress, staying one step ahead of them. From a hilltop, he fires on them, drawing them into an ill-advised ascent. As the posse struggles to climb the hill, Chato descends the other side and scatters their horses. He seems generally sanguine about their pursuit. At one point, he kills a rattlesnake, chops off its rattle, and wraps the rattle in the snake's skin. He puts the bundle in his coat pocket without explanation. As the posse continues to be outwitted by Chato, their divisions become more pronounced. When they come across a set of empty wickiups the posse gleefully burn them, led by the Hooker brothers. In a valley, Chato spies a woman filling a water jug. As they smile at each other, it becomes clear that she is his wife. He greets his son and gives him the rattlesnake toy (which we realize that Chato must have fashioned earlier, from the rattlesnake that he had killed) from his pocket. They enter Chato's hogan, happy to be reunited. Chato resumes his normal life, busying himself with breaking horses during the day. The posse eventually discovers his home, and the Hooker brothers brutally gang rape Chato's wife, and then hogtie her naked outside the hogan as bait, in order to lead Chato in a trap. Perceiving the threat of ambush, Chato and his full Apache kinsman devise a plan, and Chato's kinsman creates a diversion that allows Chato to rescue his wife. During the confusion, Chato's kinsman is shot and wounded. The sadistic members of the posse hang him upside down and set him on fire while he is still alive. Disgusted by such barbarity, Whitmore shoots the burning man through the head, putting him out of his misery. As he prepares to avenge his dead friend and his violated wife, Chato abandons the dress of his European side, and dons the native moccasins and loin cloth of the Apache side of his heritage. He lures the posse members into individual traps, killing them one at a time, starting with the youngest Hooker brother, who has developed an obsessive fixation on kidnapping the woman that he had raped for himself, and goes ahead, alone, to take Chato's wife away from him, presumably after having killed Chato. After they find the younger brother staked out and dead, the posse grows more fractious, and the insidious evil of the remaining Hooker brothers, and the pressure of realizing that the posse is no longer the hunter, but, rather, the prey, rips away their unit cohesion, until they begin to turn on each other, and the sadistic Hooker brothers murder Whitmore and the peaceful holdouts, who have tried to turn back. Chato picks off the remaining members of the posse, right down to the last man, whom Chato allows to flee, in terror, alone and horseless, without supplies, deeper into Apache territory, as Chato impassively sits his horse and watches. 

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Two women trade houses without ever having met. They're both looking for an escape from their problems, but by running away, both come to discover a great deal about themselves. Ria Lynch is married to Danny Lynch and they have a daughter and a son. Danny begins spending less and less time at home with his wife and children. Ria believes another baby is the solution, and is shocked to find out that indeed her husband is going to be a father - but to a child from an affair he has been having. Her husband's unfaithfulness is the event that leads Ria into her decision to switch homes with a woman from the US called Marilyn who lost her teenage son to a motorcycle accident on his birthday. Marilyn is struggling to come to terms with her son's death and has become estranged from her husband. She hopes her time in Dublin will cease her grief. Ria and Marilyn discover deep, dark secrets about the other during the summer. The two become close friends but do not reveal the secrets. 

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The series focuses on three generations of the Grant family working on an unnamed Great Western Railway branch line. The first section, entitled Permanent Way, depicts the construction of the line in the reign of Queen Victoria, the second, entitled Clear Ahead, shows the line in operation in Edwardian times, and the third, Fire on the Line, is set during the Second World War. Since the series was made for children, each part of the story focuses on events from the perspective of then younger members of the Grant family. The same characters reappear as adults as the story progresses, but in incidental roles. "God's Wonderful Railway" was a nickname for the pre-nationalisation Great Western Railway.Great Western history on media file. Retrieved 25 September 2020. 

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Map of the world described in the novel. The Pan- Polarian Empire is delineated in red, with territories mentioned as tributaries in maroon. The approximate locations of the Empire's primary rivals, Persia and China, are indicated in green and yellow, respectively. As with his previous work Fitzpatrick's War, The Martian General's Daughter borrows heavily from classical history; in this case, the setting is reminiscent of the Roman Empire during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and his son, Commodus. Unlike Fitzpatrick's War, Judson provides little background to explain how the world evolved into the shape set forth in the novel. The story takes place in the late twenty-third century, in which much of the Northern Hemisphere, as well as extraplanetary colonies on Mars and Jupiter, are dominated by the Pan-Polarian Empire, which is implicitly descended from the United States of America (though this is never expressly stated, references are made to the "old capital" near Maryland.) Pan-Polarian society is based on that of Imperial Rome, including an imperial cult and a variety of polytheistic and monolatric religions that have largely replaced the major religions of our time, including the cults of "El Bis" and the goddess Marilyn. The Empire's primary rivals are Persia and China, but which also fights against a number of enemies in Africa and South America. A nano- engineered plague has been released by one of the warring parties which causes metal to corrode and become useless; as a result, advanced technology is beginning to fail and the world is quickly degenerating to pre-industrial technology. The setting alternates between chronicling the career of General Black (and his daughter's career as his aide-de-camp) during the 2270s and 2280s and his attempt to seize the Imperial throne in the 2290s during a multi-party struggle resembling the Year of the Four Emperors and the Crisis of the Third Century. General Black makes his career fighting under philosopher-emperor Mathias the Glistening, who perishes when his cybernetic implants become infected with the nano-plague. Mathias is succeeded by his sociopathic son, Luke Anthony, whose behavior becomes increasingly erratic over time.In one scene, Mathias reveals that he believes the empire to be totally irredeemable, and has made his son his successor in order to bring about its ruin; a similar motivation is ascribed to Claudius in Robert Graves's Claudius the God when Claudius names Nero his successor, citing Aesop's fable of "The Frogs Who Desired a King" as his inspiration. Justa relates the excesses of Luke's regime, including his execution of perceived enemies, financial corruption, sexual perversion, etc.Luke's character is based on that of Commodus, though elements of other "mad emperors" of Rome are interwoven into the story, such as Caligula's self-deification, Elagabalus's changes to the state religion, and Caracalla's granting citizenship to all free men in the Empire to increase the tax rolls. General Black is made governor of Anatolia but is periodically recalled to provide various services to Luke. As a result of personally witnessing the Emperor's madness, General Black becomes more and more disillusioned and his health begins to suffer. Ultimately Luke is murdered and a struggle ensues between various short- reigned barracks emperors. By this time General Black and Justa are stationed on Mars, but when one of Black's political rivals seizes power, kills Black's family on Earth and infects Mars with the metal-eating nanoplague, Black's troops (many of them Boers, who are described as largely nomadic in the twenty-third century) declare him emperor and he leads an invasion force back to Earth. Although victorious in battle, the nanoplague renders the conflict moot as technology will no longer support an empire as large as the Pan- Polarian state, which crumbles into a myriad of ethnic and regional successor states. Ultimately, Justa and her father settle in Amsterdam, which has regained the prominence it enjoyed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is the center of a prosperous successor state, where Justa marries, has children, and assiduously avoids politics. 

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Everyone wants to meet Arlen Faber (Jeff Daniels), the world-famous author of the best-selling spiritual book Me and God, but crotchety, disgruntled Arlen simply wants to be left alone, and so far he's been successful at keeping his identity a secret. But all that changes when troubled bookstore owner Kris Lucas (Lou Taylor Pucci) discovers his home address and barters books for Arlen's words of wisdom, and a back injury leads the reclusive writer to date chiropractor and overprotective single mother Elizabeth (Lauren Graham). As Arlen's relationships with his newfound friends grow, he must come to terms with his past and the realization that he doesn't hold all the answers. 

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Beth is a successful pop music singer and a devout Protestant Christian from Texas, United States. She and her boyfriend Steve both belong to a group known as the "Cowboys for Christ", who travel to "heathen areas" of the world to preach Christianity. They travel to Glasgow, Scotland, hoping to save some souls once there. However, they are shocked when they receive a very negative reception, Beth even being set upon by a large dog. After performing a concert at a local cathedral, the duo are approached by Lord Lachlan and his wife Delia, aristocrats from the small village of Tressock in the Scottish lowlands. They invite Beth and Steve to come back with them to Tressock in order to preach. Meanwhile, Detective Orlando is sent to Tressock, posing as the local police officer, in order to secretly investigate reports of a pagan cult. Beth and Steve decide that they shall begin their preaching at the May Day celebrations in the village. Meanwhile, Orlando discovers that the people of the village worship the ancient Celtic goddess Sulis. In an attempt to impress the locals, Steve and Beth agree to becoming the local Queen of the May and the Laddie for the festival. In this role, they must split up for the day, and it is during this that the Laddie is devoured by the locals on an island in the middle of the river Sulis. Beth discovers this, and tries to escape, but is captured and embalmed. 

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The story is based on the lives of 12th-grade students at the DeNobili High School and their adventures, their fears and hopes, and their relationships and interactions. Besides that, the story also focuses on issues pertinent for the younger generation such as dating, drugs, careers, health, exams, and causes, in a light-hearted manner. The first season of the series more focused on the stars where they were in school flitting through life with joys and sorrows of life as students. It contained 80 episodes. 

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In an effort to curb her wild antics, the parents of Zig (Tricia Leigh Fisher) send her to the Ogilvy Academy, an elite boarding school in Greece, along with her well-behaved fraternal twin sister Jennifer (Lisa Lörient). Determined to be expelled at the earliest opportunity, Zig will go to extreme lengths to have her way. 

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The narrator is spending a few weeks camping in the Lake District before setting out on a motorcycle trip to India. He agrees to help the campsite owner, Tom Parker by performing a simple chore, painting a gate. One thing inexorably leads to another and he finds himself drawn into a succession of disparate tasks, each more complex and time-consuming, and from which there appears to be no escape. 

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The 16th (Service) Battalion (2nd Salford), Lancashire Fusiliers was one of the Pals Battalions that had been created to allow friends and colleagues to fight side-by-side. On 21 June 1916, Cpl. Stephen Sharples quells the fears of Pte. Walter Fiddes and best friend L/Cpl. Thomas Mellor that the war would be over before they could see action with the announcement that their battalion would soon take part in the big push. The three men were among the volunteers that had joined up in 1914 in response to Lord Kitchener’s call to make up the bulk of the British Army. To relieve the French at Verdun, an Anglo-French diversionary attack is to be launched at the River Somme. German divisional commander Gen. Baron Franz von Soden relies on the experience of veterans such as Cpl. Friedrich Hinkel against the biggest British military deployment in the war thus far. The British go over-the-top at on 1 July expecting little resistance after a 7 day's artillery bombardment of enemy positions but are met by machine-gun fire within minutes. Cpl. Hinkel faces the 36th (Ulster) Division, which is quickly forced into retreat while away Capt. Thomas Tweed leads the 2nd Salford Pals’ B-Company in an attack on the Thiepval Plateau that sees the death of Mellor. The Ulster division regroup to take the stronghold of the Schwaben Redoubt and Maj-Gen. Sir Edward Percival recommends committing the reserves to secure the position and take Thiepval from the north but corps commander Lt.-Gen. Sir Thomas Morland rejects the new plan. With two-thirds of his company dead or wounded Tweed takes refuge for two hours behind a bank in no-man’s land. Sharples disappears attempting to capture the enemy machine gun nest and Fiddis is wounded taking a message to battalion requesting withdrawal. Moorland, some from the front, follows the failure of the first and second attacks on Thiepval by sticking to the battle plan and ordering a third. The more adaptive German commanders retake the Redoubt rescuing Hinkel’s position and forcing the Ulstermen into a bloody retreat. The bloodiest day in British military history ends with and devastating communities like Salford but this was just the beginning of a battle that would last for four months. The British learn from their failures and over the following month they make steady gains along the front, by removing inflexible commanders like Morland and delegating to officers on the spot such as Brig-Gen. Herbert Shoubridge, who commands the 26 September attack on Thiepval spearheaded by Lt-Col. Frank Maxwell V.C. The artillery fires the new creeping barrage with the 12th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment following immediately behind, easily to overrun the first German trenches but failing to keep up; Maxwell’s men comes under fire from Infantry Regiment 180. A slaughter is averted when British tanks arrive, forcing the terrified Germans into retreat only to be ditched and disabled a short time later. Soden is distracted by an official visit from the Kaiser’s adjutant Gen. Hans von Plessen and when communication lines are cut he is rendered helpless. Meanwhile the British Generals are kept up to date by reports from artillery observers and air observations, allowing them to order re-bombardment of enemy held positions. Maxwell moves forward with his men to set up a command post at the Thiepval Chateau from where he controls the attack. With the infantry rapidly running out of officers it is left to the initiative of men from the ranks like Pvt. Frederick Edwards to secure a British victory. Plessen waits for six hours at Soden’s HQ for news of the attack, by which time it is too late to order a counterattack and Thiepval is lost. The victory allows the British to secure all their objectives from 1 July and the French at Verdun are able to launch a counter-attack to push back the Germans. Thiepval is now the site of the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme commemorating the the casualties with no known grave including Sharples, Mellor and Fiddes. 

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Olivia (Elizabeth Berkley), is young, beautiful, brilliant, and effortlessly charming. She is a dedicated charity worker, responsible for establishing free clinics across the country for poor women. When she meets millionaire Danny Keegan (Randall Batinkoff), the pair soon form a relationship and he falls for her. However, it soon becomes clear that not everyone admires Olivia. Danny’s college friend, Melanie (Alicia Coppola), a photo journalist for the Los Angeles Post, thinks that there is something suspicious about Olivia and soon wants to learn more about the mysterious woman. With the help of her assistant, Finn (Adriana DeMeo), Melanie discovers the truth about Olivia, finding out that her Ph.D. is fake, that she is responsible for many acts of embezzlement and that she has another lover on the side. Then she discovers Olivia’s numerous identities, the multiple marriages that have left her very rich, and the suspicious deaths of each of her husbands. Soon enough, Olivia realizes that Melanie is on to her and begins to take action against her. She will do anything to protect herself, even if it comes to murder. In the end, after much difficulty, Melanie manages to expose Olivia as the evil woman she truly is to everyone, including Danny, and Olivia gets her well-earned comeuppance when the arriving police shoot her to death after Olivia mindlessly attempts to shoot them. Afterwards, Melanie successfully publishes Olivia's story for the Los Angeles Post, and she and Danny begin to start a friendship. 

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Eleventh Hour follows Dr. Jacob Hood (Rufus Sewell), a brilliant biophysicist and Special Science Adviser for the FBI who is brought in to investigate crimes of a scientific nature that other agents may be unable to solve. Hood is the government's last line of defense, and it is his mission to keep scientific advances out of the hands of those with nefarious intentions. Special Agent Rachel Young (Marley Shelton), of the FBI's executive protection detail, is assigned to protect Hood. Both Dr. Hood and Special Agent Young are assisted by Special Agent Felix Lee (Omar Benson Miller), towards the end of the series. 

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The film opens with a surreal sequence of dancing women, monkey-like figures fearing lightning, and native Brazilian drummers. An old man begins chanting over a closed coffin. The coffin opens and a man rises. He appears with a top hat, cape, and long fingernails. In an isolated inn called "Hospedaria dos Prazeres" (Hostel of Pleasures), the mysterious proprietor advertises for employees to serve his guests while they stay the night of a tempestuous storm. As the storm gathers and night falls, various people begin to show up. The proprietor (Marins) allows some to stay while informing others that there are no vacancies, to their obvious displeasure because of the severity of the storm. A wealthy patron who is turned away vows to get the police. The guest book is already filled with the names of the permitted guests before they arrive; they include a group of drunken and promiscuous bohemian motorcyclists, an adulterous couple, a suicidal man, an amorous couple, a group of thieves who just finished a robbery, and some gambling businessmen preparing a deal to bankrupt a competitor. The number of guests is twelve. As the night passes, the guests continue with their assorted activities. In the early morning, they all notice that their watches all display midnight and wonder how time has stopped. When they question the proprietor, they are all presented with gruesome scenes of their dead bodies, revealing that their deaths occurred prior to midnight in the storm. The motorcyclists are shown as dead and mutilated victims of a massive drunk-driving accident. The thieves are shown shot dead by police after the robbery. The corrupt businessmen are charred victims of arson. The proprietor informs them that the clocks all turning to midnight was part of their eternal torment, as the absence of time is one of the key aspects of their punishment. The proprietor then warns the guest not to anger him, as it would unleash his dark side (the Coffin Joe-esque figure scene at the start of the film). The scene switches to daytime, and the wealthy man returns to the site of the hostel with the police. Rather than the hostel, there is a cemetery with a funeral in progress. Laughing off the incident as confusion, the man and police leave. The coffin is the same from which the hostel proprietor rises at the beginning of the film. The movie itself ends with the proprietor walking in the graveyard. He ultimately turns to the camera as the image shifts quickly to a skull wearing the same hat as the proprietor. As blood flows from the empty eye sockets, the film ends. 

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Gordini Malvezzi is a family of the Romagna gentry. The nuclear family is composed of siblings Elena, Vittorio, and Camillo. Countess Elena is an attractive middle-aged woman who plays the part of a matriarch and indulges herself in sexual relationships with common men of the town but avoids further rapport because she is afraid they are just after her money. Count Vittorio is a secularist professor who has pursued fruitless efforts to launch a political career. On the other hand, Camillo is a seventeen-year-old seminary student who is in constant struggle with his aristocratic background and Catholic upbringing and finds a symbolic revolt in adopting a hardline Maoist political line. Vittorio is in love with his accountant-secretary Giovanna but, although sympathetic with him, repelled by Vittorio's meek and impotent attitude, she rejects his advances and runs a relationship with Carlo, the young and ambitious accountant who also happens to be the treasurer of the local Unified Socialist Party branch. Carlo makes a plan to marry into the rich landed gentry through Elena and the party offers Vittorio a candidacy for the local administration elections. When Vittorio eventually drops his restrained support to Camillo's 'organisation' for the sake of his socialist candidacy, Camillo starts to subversively target his brother's campaign. 

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Navajo geologist Jamie Waterman returned to Earth as a hero, travelling the globe, giving speeches on Mars, and supporting a return voyage. Now six years later, Waterman gets to return to his beloved red planet, and to the mysterious dwelling in the Valles Marineris region. However, the second voyage has sponsorship not from governments, but from corporations, most notably from millionaire Daryl Trumball, whose son is sent on the mission to make his father proud... and money. Now, Jamie finds himself locked in a war between Trumball's wishes of exploiting the planet, his job as mission director, and his own desires to explore the cliff dwelling that could hold the key to discovering the planet's past inhabitants. 

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The novel is an adventure story about the rise of Genghis Khan and the fabled kingdom of Prester John. 

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The story revolves around the life of the clever young Ilya, who is one of the eight sons of a local boyar (Russian nobleman) named Ivan (who insists on being referred to as "Tsar"). Being in a household where the philosophy is 'survival of the fittest', Ilya has to contend with his jealous and overcompetitive brothers, who fear him for his intellect and abuse him constantly. His only friends are a priest (Father Mikhail) and a shaman (Ruslan), who are both as unwanted as he is, and Mother Galina, the elderly woman who runs the dairy. His already dismal life takes a turn for the worse when the legendary Firebird, an enormous hawk of fire similar to the phoenix, visits his father's prized cherry tree orchard and begins eating all of the ripe cherries. Days pass on and more cherries disappear, causing Ivan great anger as the culprit remains unknown and free. In a fit of rage, he promises a great reward: whoever catches the thief and brings him or them to him will become his heir. However, this proves to be useless as well for none are able to catch the culprit without falling asleep. After failing his attempt, the third son, Pietor, takes the opportunity to tell off his father and escape from Tsar Ivan's domination (stealing a horse and provisions for his escape in the process). Curious, Ilya spends the night at the orchard and, through the use of charms and some pins, manages to stay awake enough to see the Firebird. Shocked at what he's seen, Ilya remains quiet about his discovery and soon finds that he has been given the ability to understand the language of and speak with animals. However, having seen the Firebird, he is also, however, cursed with terrible luck afterwards, which leads to his being violently beaten by his remaining brothers and left for dead in the family crypt. Rescued by the priest and shaman, Ilya, with their help, concocts a plan to make himself appear harmless by pretending that his mind has been broken and he has become a fool in the traditional sense. This works for a while, but his brothers concoct another scheme to get rid of him: getting him to accompany them on a boar hunt, trying his legs to the saddle and making his horse bolt off. With the horse's help, Ilya escape unharmed, but the boar being hunted attacks and fatally wounds the horse, leaving Ilya to wander the forest in early winter. After narrowly escaping the attack of a rusalka (a female water spirit), he stumbles upon the hut of a wolf-hunter who takes him in and helps him. After staying with the hunter for a while, Ilya leaves to try to find the Firebird, who is the only one who can remove his bad luck. He soon stumbles upon the castle of Kashchei the Immortal, who has kidnapped and imprisoned the most beautiful princesses from all over and turned to statues all those heroes who have tried to rescue them (including Ilya's brother Pietor), and finds himself within reach of Princess Tatiana, the most beautiful girl in the world. Pretending again to be a half-witted fool, Ilya must use all his wits to defeat the Kashchei and win the Princess’ freedom. With the help of the Firebird, a vixen and a nightingale, he learns of a way to destroy the Kashchei and free all of the captives. But once he saves Tatiana and the others and she has sworn in front of witnesses to marry him, he realizes that things are not as he would have wished: Tatiana is not all she appears to be on the surface but is in fact selfish, vain and spoiled, and his own feelings lie elsewhere. On the very day of his wedding to Tatiana, through a hint dropped by his friends the vixen and the nightingale, he discovers that Tatiana has been unfaithful to him with Pietor. In front of witnesses, he exposes her deceit and repudiates her in theatrical fashion, and, knowing that Tatiana will now have to marry Pietor (who does not really want her and who will mistreat her just like Tsar Ivan mistreated his own wife), rides away to be reunited with his true love, the Firebird Maiden. 

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Spike (McLaglen) travels the world as the mate of a schooner. He has a little address book full of sweethearts, but everywhere he goes, he finds that someone has been there before him, leaving behind with each girl a heart- shaped charm with an anchor inscribed on it. In Central America, he takes a dislike to another sailor, Salami (Armstrong), but before they can settle their differences, they brawl with the police and are thrown in jail. Then Spike notices that Salami has a ring shaped like a heart with an anchor inscribed. He has finally found his nemesis. When they are released, they look for a private place to fight, but accidentally fall into the water. Oddly, Spike cannot swim, so when Salami rescues him, they become the best of friends. Inseparable, they sail the seas on the same ships. Just before they reach Marseille, Spike tells Salami he has finally saved enough money to buy a house and some horses, cows and chickens, but Salami scoffs at the idea. When they dock, Salami has to stay aboard due to a toothache and worries the Spike will get into trouble without him. At a carnival, Spike becomes entranced by the high diver "Mam'selle Godiva" (Brooks). When the barker signals her that Spike gave him the most money to watch her performance, she latches onto him. He is so in love with her that he asks her if she would like to settle down with him; she leads him on so she can get the rest of his money. When Spike first introduces Salami to her, Salami recognizes her. She was his girlfriend at Coney Island until he left her. She makes it clear that she would very much like to renew their relationship, but he is not interested, nor does he want to hurt Spike by telling him the truth. One night, she sends Spike on an errand so she can visit Salami, whom she finds asleep in bed. She tells him that she has gotten most of Spike's savings and is about to drop him. Salami refuses to take her back; he gets dressed and goes to a bar to get away from her. However, Spike returns to their lodgings and finds her there. He also spots Salami's unmade bed, so he assumes the worst. Meanwhile, Salami gets into a fight with two other sailors and yells for his friend's help. Spike knocks the two men out, then does the same to Salami. After thinking over all the fun they had together, however, he asks Salami if he betrayed him. When Salami says no, they become friends again. 

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Two sailors are conned into buying a lame race-horse. They go ashore to sort out the problem, but when they realize that the horse is one of a pair of identical twins, their plan for revenge becomes more complicated. 

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Late one night, Malini Gujral and her boyfriend Sunny are brutally murdered while playing Squash on their college campus by a killer in a clown mask. Six months later in Shimla, Malini's younger sister Mahek is shopping for art supplies and runs into police inspector Kamat Uncle. He tells her there is no progress in the search for her sister's killer, as no evidence was left behind. He warns her that killers like this lie in wait before their next attack, and advises her to take care. While at the register, the phone rings and Mahek answers. The caller addresses Mahek by name and introduces himself as Malini's killer. Mahek frantically looks around and sees a young man walking away from a pay phone from the back of the store, he comes closer to her, apparently holding a large knife, similar to the clown-masked killer. She screams and covers her eyes, but the man has no knife and he was following her to return her purse. The next day at Simon College, she runs into the young man while hanging out with her friends Rocky, Gehna, Rajat, Rhea and Nikhil. He introduces himself as Suraj Rai, and says he is new to the campus from Delhi. Rocky is the jokester of the group and likes to bunk classes. Suraj and Mahek head off to their psychology class and it's obvious Rocky is jealous and in love with Mahek. While preparing for gym class, Mahek expresses her concern of the incident of the phone call, and Gehna brushes it off. As Mahek is left alone in the locker room, the killer's voice comes over the loudspeaker calling her name. The principal announces not to worry, as someone played a cheap joke while out of his office. Whilst Mahek is picking up her makeup that she dropped, the clown-masked killer comes up behind her with a knife. Mrs. Roy enters the room and the killer is gone. Mahek leaves and Mrs. Roy continues to rant about the prankster from earlier. She hears a man's cough from one of the stalls. Thinking it's a girl and boy together, she starts to open each stall. As she gets to the third stall, it won't open. She peers into a slight opening and the killer stabs her in the eye. Students crowd around as the investigation of Mrs. Roy's death presses on. There is a bloody shoe print at the scene of the crime, but no other evidence. Kamat Uncle is there and advises the principal that his students are not safe as this is the second incident in 6 months. The inspectors believe it is the work of a serial killer. Mahek approaches Kamat Uncle and tells him about the phone call she received. Rocky is chatting with Nikhil and Suraj, making jokes about how he's escaped having to take the psychology exam tomorrow and Kamat Uncle overhears and becomes suspicious and starts questioning where Rocky was, and what his shoe size is. Rocky claims to have been at home an hour earlier and just got to campus. But Rocky's feet are bigger than the prints at the scene, eliminating him as a suspect. Rocky tells the inspector to question newer students, pointing to Suraj. Suraj becomes nervous when his shoe size matches the footprint. Kamat Uncle dismisses it and suggests that they wait for the post-mortem report. Mahek starts to avoid Rocky and apologizes to Suraj for his behavior. Suraj shares about his close relationship with his father, and Mahek has flashbacks to when her dad left her family. Upset, she runs away without explanation. At home she is comforted by her mom, who explains she is going away for an art convention in Delhi. She is worried about leaving Mahek, even though it is just for 3 hours. Later that night, she hears a noise thinking her mom is back from Delhi. She finds a window unlocked and realizes she's in her house with the killer. During the pursuit she notices an orange watch on the killer's wrist. She manages to alert Kamat Uncle of her attack and is able to fight the killer, who escapes through a window before the police arrive. She runs outside and Suraj is out there. Initially she rushes into his arms, but she notices the same orange watch on his wrist. Kamat Uncle arrives and Inspector Rathod finds the clown mask and robe in the bushes nearby. Her mom arrives as Suraj is being arrested. Rocky is throwing a party and is desperate for Mahek to attend. She is convinced by Gehna and her mom to go to the party to get her mind off the attack. Mahek goes to the party but is less than enthusiastic. Eventually she leaves, and on the foggy drive home. Gehna is venting and blaming Rocky for being insensitive, but Mahek defends him. She receives a call on her mobile from the killer. She is terrified, because Suraj is currently in jail. Suddenly, the killer appears in the middle of the road, causing Gehna to lose control of the car and crash into a shallow river. Gehna is unconscious and Mahek climbs her way out and begins to scream for help. The killer comes out from the water and grabs her trying to drown her. Suraj arrives and begins to fight the killer. It turns out he had an alibi and was working with Principal Aneja that evening. Kamat Uncle is also there. He has his gun out but doesn't have a good shot. The killer escapes into the fog and is shot by Kamat Uncle, and jumps into the river. The police are unsuccessful in recovering the killer's body and Mahek is back at home. She makes amends with Suraj, but continues to have visions of the killer, despite her assuming he is dead. She has a breakdown in front of Gehna and her friends decide that they need to go on holiday. They decide on going to Thailand. After staying in Thailand, they go to an island and get trapped. They realise that there is no escaping death now as they are trapped the island with the killer. The group all argue over who amongst them can't be trusted. Mahek is turned against Rocky as suspicious circumstances continue to surround him. Rajat, Rhea, and Nikhil are all murdered. Kamat Uncle and Rathod arrive on the island and bring news of Mrs Gujral's murder. Kamat Uncle is killed, and the killer is shot by Suraj. When they remove the mask, it is Inspector Rathod. Rocky tries to implore Mahek to accept his love, and Suraj shoots him. It is at this point Suraj reveals his identity as the killer. It is also revealed that Rajat was not killed, but is alive. The killer is a duo. Suraj and Rajat are brothers. Their mother was raped by Mahek and Malini's estranged father, destroying their family after she committed suicide from the shame. Following their mother's suicide, their dad shot himself. For revenge, Suraj and Rajat killed Mr. Gujral first, followed by Malini, then Mrs. Gujral and need to claim Mahek's life to repay the debt owed for her father ruining their lives. Rocky is able to regain enough strength to shoot Suraj and Rajat and save Mahek from the same fate as her family. Ultimately Suraj dies at the hands of Mahek, who stabs him after his gunshot wound proves to be nonfatal. Rocky and Mahek ride back to the mainland on a boat in each other's arms. 

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Inspector Zaid Ahmed (Muzammil Ibrahim) is notified on duty that there has been a bomb blast at a mall. After investigation, it is found out that the suicide bomber responsible was Sara Khan (Tulip Joshi), Zaid's wife. Zaid finds it hard to believe in seeing his wife's dead body and claims to have dropped her at the bus stop. Zaid, who is inspected by the ATS (Anti Terrorism Squad), is called off duty temporarily by ATS Chief Raj Mehra (Gulshan Grover) but stands firm to his statement that his wife could not be the terrorist responsible. One day he receives a DVD, by post, at home, which consists of his wife's dying testimonial in which she accepts that she is the responsible terrorist. Not believing what he has seen, Zaid decides to visit Sara's grandfather Saeed Noor Bux (Anupam Kher). On meeting him, Saeed reveals a rather shocking story. Sara's father had been arrested by the Local Police and had been beaten as he was suspected of terrorist activities. During the interrogation, he dies. The Police hide his body, claims that he has run to Pakistan and was found guilty of being a terrorist. When Saeed complains about this incident to higher authorities, Sara, her brother Daanish (Abhay Sachar) and he himself are arrested by the Inspector and are forced to sign a statement that they do not want to investigate this case. Upon refusal, they make nude videos of Sara. After Saeed is forced to sign the statement, the inspector (Ashutosh Rana) asks Saeed and Daanish to go home, takes Sara to a cell, and rapes her. Due to this incident, Sara and her brother start meeting a Molvi (Islamic Preacher) (Munish Makhija), who convinces them to lay down their lives by killing Non-Muslims. While Sara was first in the league, her brother, who has been missing for a month, might follow her. Zaid, horrified by this tale, tries to find Sarah's brother Danish and finds him when he is being prepared to blast himself in a few days. As a result of chasing him, he finds out the Molvi behind this, and shares harsh words with him. Later he is shown a recording of Daanish accepting the responsibility of another bombing yet to take place. Molvi's men tell Zaid they will let him go after the bombing has happened the following day but he fights them and escapes to go after Daanish. Zaid finds Daanish at the station about to make a final call to his grandad and convinces him that he will get justice for Sara and their father. Daanish relents and hugs Zaid. Zaid's rank is restored and he resumes duty. He then explains to the senior police officers how they force terrorists to be born just because of not being able to give them justice. It is later shown that the corrupt Inspector is arrested and sentenced. Saeed and Daanish win the case with the help of Zaid. 

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Joseph is a retired NYPD cop and Holocaust survivor. He travels to Nuremberg to visit his son Ronnie years after turning his back on him for rejecting a promising career in the NYPD and marrying a local artist, Anna. No sooner does Joseph attempt to heal the rift with Ronnie than he swears that an elderly man living in Ronnie's building, under the false name of Shrager, is the Nazi SS Commander who slaughtered his entire family during World War II. With little hope of seeing him stand trial, Joseph talks Ronnie into exacting justice - and vengeance - and together they set out to kill him. Flashbacks reveal the teenage love of Young Joseph for a heroic Polish girl, Kashka, and his narrow escape from the massacre, leading to the film's climax. 

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A Perfect Spy traces the life story of Magnus Pym and his career in British intelligence and as a double agent. The series recounts Pym's childhood with his con-man father, his early years at school and university, his encounters with long-time friend and Czech spy Axel, and his final downfall. 

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In 2912 a war rages on earth and is escalating out of control. If the Central Galactic Control Computer on Earth is destroyed then all life on the planets will perish with it. The council of Sages give Dexter, an android expert in dangerous missions, and Scooter his trusty Podocephalus, the mission to infiltrate the computer centre and copy the memory in order that Galactic life can continue. 

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In 1982, Ari Folman was a 19-year-old IDF infantry soldier. In 2006, he meets with a friend from that period named Boaz, who tells him of the nightmares he's having connected to his experiences from the Lebanon War. Boaz describes 26 madly angry dogs, running towards his house through Tel Aviv main streets, destroying everything in their way. Boaz explains that during the war, his role was to shoot the dogs when the unit infiltrated villages at night, so that these dogs will not alarm the village of their arrival, and so the dogs in his dream are the souls of the very dogs he himself has killed. Boaz further explains he was chosen to do his job as he was witnessing a special mental difficulty to shoot people. Folman is surprised to find that he recalls nothing from that period. Later that night he has a vision from the night of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the reality of which he is unable to clearly recall. In his memory, he and his soldier comrades are bathing at night by the seaside in Beirut under the light of flares descending over the city. Folman rushes off to meet a childhood friend, who is a professional therapist. His friend advises him to seek out others who were in Beirut at the same time, to understand what happened there and to revive his own memories. The friend further explains that as for the nature of human memory, the vision might not be based on events which actually occurred. Later on, he explains to Folman that even though the vision might be an hallucination, the vision still deals with matters of great importance for his inner world. Folman converses with friends and other soldiers who served in the war, among others a psychologist, and Israeli TV reporter Ron Ben-Yishai, who covered Beirut at the time. Folman eventually realizes that he "was in the second or third ring" of soldiers surrounding the Palestinian refugee camp where the carnage was perpetrated, and that he was among those soldiers firing flares into the sky to illuminate the refugee camp for the Lebanese Christian Phalange militia perpetrating the massacre inside. He concludes that his amnesia stemmed from his feeling as a teenage soldier that he was as guilty of the massacre as those who actually carried it out. The film ends with animation dissolving into actual footage of the aftermath of the massacre. 

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The story is framed as a one-sided conversation between two people, with Charley doing all of the talking. Charley recounts how he had fallen into a similar conversation with another man in a bar years before, and that man had told him to go to Acme Travel Bureau, a small travel agency located on the 200 block of West 42nd Street in New York City, and hint to the proprietor that he would like to "escape" from Earth and its ever-growing list of problems. Charley seeks out the travel agency and strikes up a conversation with the proprietor, who remains nameless. After taking some time to assess Charley, the proprietor of the travel agency confides that "just as a sort of little joke," he had printed up a travel brochure for a supposedly fictional planet named Verna, whose inhabitants had evolved some time prior to humans, but were physically very similar to humans. As opposed to the warlike ways displayed by humankind through the years, the Vernans had advanced to a peaceful society on an idyllic forested planet. When the Vernans discovered Earth, they observed it for an unstated period of time, even going so far as to put one of their people on Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. In 1913, just before World War I erupted, they chose to go from passive observation to active intervention, picking a small number of humans over time to invite to Verna. In discussing the Vernans' motivations, the proprietor reasons to Charley, "If you saw a neighbor's house on fire, would you rescue his family if you could? As many as you could, at least?" Over time the Vernans opened branches of Acme Travel Bureau in every major city and invited people from all over the earth, including Ambrose Bierce and, speculates Charley, Judge Crater. When Charley asks him, "when does it stop being a joke?", the proprietor tells him, "Now. If you want it to." He gives Charley a bus ticket and asks him for whatever money he has on him — "two five-dollar bills, a one, and seventeen cents in change" — as payment, saying that he wouldn't need it on Verna and that it would help to pay the light bills and rent for Acme Travel. When Charley questions the price, the proprietor says that an identical ticket had sold earlier for $3,700 and another for $.06. The proprietor then directs him to Acme Depot, from which a bus will take him to the departure point. He arrives at a small bus station "on one of the narrow streets west of Broadway" occupied by a few other people. They all board a decrepit bus and drive out to rural Long Island, where they are deposited at a dilapidated barn and told to wait for departure to Verna. As he sits and waits in the dark barn, Charley descends into a rage after he concludes he has been played for a fool. He storms out of the barn, but just as he crosses the threshold, he looks back and briefly glimpses, in a flash of light, the planet Verna through the back window of the barn before the barn door slams shut. By the time he gets the barn door back open, the people he left in the barn are gone, taken to Verna. Returning to the travel agency some time later, Charley is greeted by the proprietor, who hands him his money and says, "You left this on the counter last time you were here. I don't know why." The story ends with Charley telling his new acquaintance how to find Acme Travel, what to say, and how to act. He then emphasizes to the other person not to back out at the last minute, since no one gets another chance to emigrate to Verna, no matter which branch of Acme Travel they go to, because, in his words, "...I've tried. And tried. And tried." 

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Kingdom of the Wicked focuses on Christopher Grahame. As a young child he was bedridden and to amuse himself began writing stories centered around an elaborate fantasy world named Castrovalva. As he grew older, he eventually abandoned Castrovalva and its population of made-up friends. (The new prologue shows how, after Chris left, a monster in the shape of a boy arrived to begin terrorizing the populace) After marrying and having his first child, Chris began to write stories again to amuse his daughter. His wife collected them and, without his knowledge, sent them in to be published. Now, several years later, he is known as the greatest children's writer in the world, besieged by offers of movie rights, sequels, art galleries, and the like. At a press event, Chris begins having a series of blackouts, finding himself back in the world of Castrovalva. However, Castrovalva is now a war-torn landscape, where his childhood friends are fighting a war similar to World War I against a figure known as "the Great Dictator". The Great Dictator was the monster-child from the prologue, the "spitting image" of Chris. Chris sees his friend, teddy bear Sergeant Fuzzbox, get killed by going over the top and another friend, tin soldier Captain (now Colonel) Flashheart be murdered by an agent of the Great Dictator. In the real world, Chris' wife and his doctors realize the reason he has been having the blackouts is due to a parasitic twin that failed to develop in pregnancy, and has attached itself to Chris' central nervous system. In Castrovalva, Chris has been manipulated into entering the Land Under the Bed that serves as the Great Dictator's headquarters, where the Great Dictator explains much the same thing. He was only able to look out at the world from Chris' senses, being otherwise incapable of anything. When Chris abandoned Castrovalva, the Dictator moved in, finding it a fully made world that he would actually be able to inhabit and live in. However, after tiring of toying with its imaginary inhabitants, he lured Chris back in through the blackouts in order to kill him and possess his real brain, therefore becoming the "real" Chris. Chris manages to stop the Dictator's attempts by realizing that Castrovalva is his territory, and that he can make the rules there. At the same time in the real world, Chris undergoes surgery to remove the fetus from his skull. However, Chris takes pity on the Dictator, and absorbs his essence into his. A brief afterword states that Chris took nine months to regain consciousness, and never told anyone of the events. However, the final page shows him working on a script entitled "Kingdom of the Wicked", implying his next book will be based on what he saw, and the final panel shows Chris and the Dictator, both as small boys again, running through a restored Castrovalva to play with Fuzzbox, Flashheart, and the other friends who died in the war. 

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Three days before the game's event, the fictional Varrigan City became a target for a group of terrorists called "The Organizers", who severed the island city's transportation and communication ties with the rest of the world. They released a virus onto its population that would kill them in less than a day. However, the Organizers informed the populace that any person that killed another would receive the vaccine. The city was quickly transformed into the stage of a recurring game show called "DeathWatch", with announcers Howard "Buckshot" Holmes (Greg Proops) and former DeathWatch fighter Kreese Kreeley (John DiMaggio). The remaining citizens of Varrigan City and new hopeful ones become the show's contestants, hoping to become the top-ranked fighter in the game and win a large cash prize. Jack Cayman (Steven Blum), a man with the chainsaw attached to his prosthetic arm, enters the games and manages to gain sponsorship from "Agent XIII" (Jim Ward). The game's organizers, led by Noa (Dwight Schultz), knows Jack's motive is more than just to win, and learn that Jack works with someone on the outside. They come to learn that Jack was a former marine, police officer and rogue agent, but now seems intent on a mission. Noa surmises that Jack is after Naomi Ann Boris (Kate Higgins), the mayor's daughter working in the city. While they plan to kill Jack, they realize he became an audience favorite, with many sponsors and viewers betting on his success. Meanwhile, Jack meets Leo Fallmont (Danny Cooksey), a hospital doctor who was unwittingly trapped in the city, but managed to obtain the vaccine. After telling Leo to stay low, Jack continues the mission. When Jack finds Naomi, he learns that she is the one watching the games and not getting in crisis. Jack leaves and continues to solve the case about the city's abnormal situation. Meanwhile, the Organizers realize Jack as the reigning champ, who quit the games by signing on to the Chasers. As Jack nears the last battle against reigning- feigning champ, the Black Baron (Reno Wilson), Agent XIII reveals himself to be Lord Gesser, an influential figure in politics and knows that the DeathWatch games were created to cause the attack, but admits that this particular incarnation of the games is solely driven by someone's greed, and passes on the name of Springvale to Jack and the Agency, which quickly recognizes the name as a pharmaceutical company and that they were the silent hand that had built (in anticipation of DeathWatch) much of the sets for the games as soon as the Organizers had released the virus. After defeating the Black Baron at the end of the games, Jack blames Noa, who is shot and killed by Leo. After dealing with the armed forces, Jack disables the communication link with the Chasers and interrogates Leo. Leo tells Jack that his father was the president of Springvale Pharmaceuticals, who created both the virus and the vaccine, and were planning to use the televised DeathWatch event to show the effect of the virus as to blackmail anyone to pay for the vaccine under the outbreak. Leo admits that the company went bankrupt on the last presidential election and saw this route as the easiest way to recoup their losses. He is also at the games to be close to the action, fascinated by sports. Jack throws Leo off the tower to his death. While the announcers complain about the irrelevance, Jack leaves Varrigan City. 

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The story takes place in Lancaster College in 1967. The board discusses what to do with a surplus of money. One proposal is to create a building on a nearby meadow to be able to let in more students. Undergraduate Hugh Balliston is drawn into revolutionary activities by Fellow Tony Beck and the unknown revolutionary Mayerston, much to the dismay of his girlfriend Hetta Frith. Tom Llewyllyn, a fellow of the college since 1963, has become impotent and has an unhappy marriage with Patricia. Daniel Mond, the mathematician who was the protagonist of The Sabre Squadron (15 years earlier) is a (literally) quiet man who can only speak in whispers because of a self- inflicted injury to his throat, but who is still teaching mathematics. Among other teachers is the odd Lord Beyfus and his friend, the somewhat radical Mona Corrington. Through Hugh, Mayerston is trying to start violent protests on the campus but most of them end up as fiascos since the Provost of the College, Robert Constable, treats them with a mixture of contempt and tolerance. Isobel advises Patricia to take a lover and she ends up in bed with Hugh who she, in a farcical scene, must shut in the wardrobe when her daughter unexpectedly comes home. Llewyllyn and Mond invite old friend Fielding Gray to the college but he is rather soon picked up by his over-protective mistress Harriet Ongley. Hetta, who has left Hugh, cries on the shoulder of lord Beyfus, who very much likes to comb her hair. The atmosphere in the school turns to the worse and Mayerston uses more violent methods. During a ceremony in the Chapel (with several of the known characters attending) he and his followers burst into the building and try to destroy the altar and the statue of Henry VI. Tom Llewyllyn saves the statue by use of force and Hetta, fed up with the revolution, protects the altar with assistance from Lord Canteloupe and some other people. During the tumult she is, however, killed by a blow to the head. This tragedy kills also the revolutionary atmosphere of the college. Tony Beck and Mayerston disappear. Constable makes note of how the conservative side have gained a "martyr" in Hetta and find this of some use to keep things calm. Lord Canteloupe comforts the sad Lord Beyfus by giving him the address of the whore Maisie. Patricia comforts Hugh, forgiven for his revolutionary mistakes, in bed. Category:1970 British novels Category:Novels by Simon Raven Category:Novels set in Cambridge Category:Fiction set in 1967 Category:University of Cambridge in fiction 

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The story describes the fictional town of Owl, North Dakota, in which three characters are intangibly connected. Horace is an old man who spends his afternoons in the local coffee shop with other old men, shaking dice to see who pays for coffee, and talking about politics, religion, and memorable Owl football teams of the past. Mitch is a stoic high school backup quarterback who is depressed for no apparent reason. Julia is the newest resident of Owl. She moved to the small town to teach history and spends much of her free time at the local bars (where she meets local celebrity Vance Druid). The town has about 850 residents and is semi-isolated from 1980s music and culture. As a climax, the three main characters are caught in a sudden blizzard—Horace and Julia stuck in their cars and Mitch outdoors. 

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The book begins roughly 5 months after the events of Evil Genius. Cadel is now living with foster parents in a state of legal limbo, not knowing where he was born or his true father. His life is made even worse due to his foster brother "Mace" (real name: Thomas) is constantly bullying him. With no school to attend due to his questionable legal status, Cadel spends his time either on the computer, idling or visiting Sonja. The police and the FBI also occasionally turn up to question him on what he knows about Dr. Darkkon, Prosper English and the Axis Institute. During these questionings Cadel meets Saul Greeniaus, a detective who is now in charge of his case. His style puts him in conflict with Cadel's social worker, Fiona Currey. On his second visit to Sonja he is confronted by Trader Lynch and Judith Bashford. Trader and Judith attempt to convince Sonja and Cadel to join Genius Squad, An organisation formed to take down GENOME [a corporation founded by Darkkon] which is funded by Rex Austin, an American billionaire who suspects the company murdered his son, Jimmy. The book ends with Cadel being told that a man named Chester Cramp is his father. He is offered a spot in Fiona and Saul's family While Saul and Fiona initially object, they relent after a particularly heated confrontation with "Mace". Cadel arrives at the youth home, where Saul and Fiona help him move his belongings. Cadel is introduced to Devin and Lexi Winiecki, Hamish Primrose, Dot[the sister of Com from Evil Genius] and the rest of the adult staff. While Genius Squad works away, trying to avoid notice by Cadel's various bodyguards, they uncover a web of deceit, crimes and cerebral implants. During this time, "Mace" finds the address of the Genius Squad foster house and attempts to frame Cadel for theft by planting a stolen watch on him (a plan which ultimately fails and leads to Mace's arrest). Cadel also finds that Gazo Kovacs has made contact with GenoME, unaware of their sinister intentions. Unfortunately, GenoME manages to spring Prosper from jail and he immediately moves to kidnap Cadel. Cadel is taken to the house of Judith, one of the other members of Genius squad. From here, Prosper flees to a private air strip to leave the country after Cadel attempts to contact Saul for help. Saul gets a group of police officers down to the airport in time to save Cadel, but Prosper manages to get away. At this point, paternity tests show that Prosper English isn't really Cadel's father, even though he thought he was. Cadel's real father is Chester Cramp, who runs Fountain Pharmaceuticals, another Darkkon corporation. However, with Chester sitting in an American Jail. Cadel agrees to being adopted by Saul and Fiona, who happened to be getting married. Saul finally finds out about Genius Squad, and though he is very upset that Cadel lied to him for so long, he agrees to let Genius Squad live on. His reasoning for this, is that he believes that Genius Squad might just be their best chance of finding Prosper and bringing him down once and for all. 

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The show centered on a Portuguese man seeking clues regarding his parent. After the death of his mother, Diogo Bernardo Furlong visits Ireland to scatter his mother's ashes on the grave of his father. His father had died some years before in a boating accident on Lough Allen, and he was raised by his mother in Alentejo, Portugal. His only clue to his father's grave is a postcard that his mother gave to him with a picture of a church. Leaving behind his fiancée Claudia, he arrives in Dublin and is met by an acquaintance and music promoter David Daly (Garrett Keogh). Promising to help Diogo find his father's grave, Daly persuades Diogo to take a musical tour of Ireland with him and his daughter Margaret (Orla Fitzgerald), an aspiring filmmaker who reluctantly agrees to manage Diogo. A backup band is hired and, joined by Margaret's boyfriend John Ford (Simon Keogh) and his friend Sean Flanagan (Domhnall Gleeson), Diogo and The Fandango's begin a tour of Ireland's graveyards and other lesser-known legendary venues, including Ballymore Eustace, Roscommon, Strokestown, Ballaghaderreen, Ballagh and Westport. 

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Young Tristen Waters, her brother Troy and his friend Ricky go to their father William's holiday home, spending most of their time alone while William works as a policeman to pay off the damage caused by the gambling problem that ended his marriage with Tristan and Troy's mother. While there, the three of them start to spy on their neighbours and soon notice that one of their neighbours is hiring prostitutes who go into the house but never come out. When the man discovers they are filming him, they hide in the flat, only to be found and tied up by the murderer later. William shows up and a fight ensues, causing him to be knocked out. He later awakens and tells the killer "I thought I told you to wait till their mother was here" before shooting him to death. Frantic, William prepares to kill his children, only to be stabbed to death by his ex-wife. It is then revealed that his ex- wife is the killer of the prostitutes and has been filming the murders after the bodies were supplied to her by the pimp. She finds a text sent to her saying "I C U." She notices a camera in the room, one of the many cameras that are planted all over the hotel, and seems to recognise the person operating them. The person operating the cameras is left unknown. 

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In the Nineteenth Year of Kannei (1642), a rebellion by the Hori clan against Katō Akinari, the daimyō of Aizu, has been suppressed through the intervention of the Tokugawa shogunate. Placed into the custody of the Seven Spears, Katō's brutal group of personal enforcers, the Hori men are dragged to the Tōkei-ji "Divorce Temple" at Kamakura where the Hori women had been hiding. Despite a law passed by the former shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu forbidding men to enter the temple, the Seven Spears force their way in and brutally slaughter the Hori women before their husbands and brothers, before proceeding to murder them too. The massacre is stopped only by the intervention of Princess Sen, the Tōkei-ji Temple's guardian and older sister to the reigning shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu. Unfortunately, though the Seven Spears agreed to depart, only seven of the Hori women survived. In retribution for the violation of Tōkeiji Temple and those who she had taken under her care, Princess Sen sends a message to the famous monk Takuan Sōhō to locate one person who can train the seven Hori women in the arts of ninjutsu to seek their revenge. The one chosen is Yagyū Jūbei Mitsuyoshi, son of Yagyū Munenori and former instructor to the shogun. With Jubei's instruction and guidance, the Hori women begin their war against the Seven Spears and ultimately Katō himself. 

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The novel begins in Rwanda. The protagonist is a priest named Terry Dunn. It is a few years after the genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutus. Father Terry lives in Rwanda with his girlfriend Chantelle. He doesn't have qualms about substituting punishment for penance. If that means killing four Hutu murderers who slaughtered his Tutsi congregation, so be it. After being an instrument of divine wrath, Dunn breaks camp and heads for Detroit. He wants to raise money for 'Pagan Babies' — the children orphaned during the genocide. Dunn's brother Fran specializes in lawsuits for personal injuries. He is helping Debbie, a woman who spent three years in jail for deliberately hitting her ex-husband Randy with a Ford Escort. Debbie is trying to have a career as a comedian. In the meantime we learn more about Terry's past and his problems with the IRS, which was the reason for his fleeing to Rwanda to help his uncle. Debbie's ex-husband Randy now owns a restaurant and is involved with some of the same gangsters that Terry once knew. Debbie and Terry begin a relationship. Randy stole sixty-seven thousand dollars from Debbie and now it's only a matter of time before Debbie's desire for cold, hard cash and Terry's fundraising for Rwandan orphans join forces in a carefully plotted financial assault on Randy. They want to receive a donation of 250,000 dollars from Tony Amilia, the local wiseguy, for the 'Pagan Babies'. In Randy's restaurant all of the local wise guys, hit men, and scam artists twist and twirl around each other for the money and for their lives. 

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During the Second World War, Jimmy Bancroft (Niall MacGinnis), a fighter pilot just released from hospital, and his nurse (now his girlfriend) Hazel Broome (Rosamund John) are on a walking tour through the countryside. They arrive at the (fictional) village of Lipsbury Lea and, being keen birdwatchers, discover that a pair of tawny pipits, which are rarely seen in England, are nesting nearby. Staying in the village, they enlist the locals to protect the nesting site until the eggs hatch. The villagers do so with great enthusiasm, led by the fiery retired Colonel Barton-Barrington (Bernard Miles) and the Reverend Mr. Kingsley. The field where the nest is located (known locally as the pinfold) is due to be ploughed by order of the county's War Agricultural Executive Committee (the "War Ag"), and a delegation to the Ministry of Agriculture in London fails to get the order rescinded. The minister was Barton-Barrington's "fag" at his public school, Marlborough, and personally intervenes to save the field from being ploughed. The eggs duly hatch, but not before a plot to steal them on behalf of an unscrupulous dealer is foiled by an alert army corporal (a professional ornithologist) who is serving nearby. 

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The Butcher's Boy, not to be confused with Michael Robb's "The Butcher's Boy - The Ballad of Billy Badass," features professional hitman Michael Schaeffer as its protagonist. Murder is a craft for the "Butcher's Boy," a reference to his foster father, "Eddie the Butcher," who raised him to follow in both of his two trades: the cold-blooded killer with a gimlet eye, and an actual butcher for a cover life. When Eddie dies an unnatural death, his adoptive son continues in his footsteps, but leaves the butcher shop behind. After dispatching an innocent union employee and a U.S. Senator, he arrives in Las Vegas, Nevada to pick up his fee. Instead of a payoff he finds himself on the wrong end of a murder contract. His reputation as a non pareil professional killer has always ensured he would be paid, even by men who think no more about murder than scratching an itch, men who nonetheless would not risk creating such an adept enemy. The story brings that scenario to life as the Butcher's Boy seeks to collect the debt by terrorizing the Mafia—lifelong source of his freelance jobs and current nemesis—into backing off. Meanwhile, the initial hits completed by "The Butcher's Boy" have attracted the attention of U.S. government specialists on organized crime. Elizabeth Waring, a bright young, unmarried analyst in the Justice Department, begins to see a pattern in the killings. As the violence escalates around the United States, her colleagues and superiors suspect internecine warfare among the bad guys, though Waring deduces the fact that one man on a mission may be the key. As she works her way closer to his identity, she and the reader come to admire his audacity and remorseless, creative efficiency in staying one step ahead of the Mob's death sentence. The point of view switches back and forth between Waring and the killer, whom readers come to root for as the ultimate David to the Goliath of organized crime. Readers are drawn into rooting for the Butcher's Boy to succeed in evading both his Mafia pursuers and the government agents. And indeed he does, only to find himself in similar circumstances one, and then two, decades later in Sleeping Dogs and The Informant, where both he and Waring have also aged historically, and share the knowledge and context of the earlier stories. Together the trilogy makes for a brilliant virtuoso fugue on the concepts of predator/prey, the affinity between detectives and killers, and the greater morality of what a true survivalist might be like, at the top of his game. Perry has gone on to a prize-filled career as a consummate crime writer with a score of eclectic novels, another irresistible, unique protagonist named Jane Whitefield, and the reputation as a "capo di tutti capi" of crime writers. Fans hope he will still be interested in writing a fourth installment around 2020 (when Michael Schaeffer will be in his 60s, and Elizabeth Waring's kids will be out of college) if not sooner. 

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The story takes place in a fictional world full of monsters and adventurers called Monster Hunters, who, as their name implies, hunt the monsters. The plot revolves around a young Monster Hunter, Shiki, who was taken in as an apprentice to a Monster Hunter named Greylee as a child. A few years after Greylee's death, which was due to a gunpowder incident, he returns to his master's residence, Akamaaya Town, to join the guild there. In that guild, he meets a girl called Ailee and after a series of events, he finds that she is the daughter of his master. From this point onwards, they form a party to find the legendary Myo Galuna, which was Greylee's lifelong ambition. 

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Donald and Huey, Dewey, and Louie pay Scrooge a visit in his mansion after their stay on Bear Mountain (shown by Barks in FC-178 "Christmas on Bear Mountain" from 1947). Provocated by Donald, Scrooge takes his nephews to his Money Bin to show them his fortune. Unfortunately they are followed by The Beagle Boys - led by Blackheart Beagle, all disguised as Santa Claus. After chasing and defeating eight members of The Beagle Boys, Scrooge decides to reopen his financial empire. 

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Scrooge and his sisters go to Africa where Scrooge, for the only time in his life, acts like a scoundrel as he hires some criminals to attack a native village. In protest, his sisters return to Duckburg while Scrooge goes around the world in search of more wealth. The whole time, he is followed by a zombie named Bombie. In the end he returns home as a hardened duck and as a result his family leaves him, but he finds comfort in now being the richest duck on earth. But this comfort is only temporary; the shame and remorse start to torment Scrooge, and his guilt and sadness grow up to the point where he loses his interest in money and retires. 

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The first three Junior Woodchucks are expelled from their former headquarters, the ruins of Fort Duckburg, recently bought by Scrooge McDuck. To reclaim the fort, they appeal to a "higher authority" by wire, which turns out to be an all-ears U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt (Attorney General William Henry Moody: "They say a billionaire from Scotland has seized a military installation on the coast!" - Roosevelt: "Great jumping Jehoshaphat! The three dangers that I campaign strongest against - big business, foreign interference, and military threats to our shores - all rolled into one! Egad!"), who decides to mobilize the entire US Army and Navy, as well as the Rough riders, against Fort Duckburg. After an enduring battle fought pretty much against Scrooge alone, eventually the President's troops fold against the infamous temper of Scrooge's sister Hortense. 

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Having struck it rich in the Klondike Gold Rush (see chapter 8, King of the Klondike), Scrooge goes home to Scotland, but after realizing that he doesn't fit in very well there any more, he hires Scottie McTerrier to look after the McDuck castle for him, while Scrooge and his sisters leave for a small, unseeming town called Duckburg located in Calisota, United States. Scrooge had recently bought a plot of land there from the founder's grandson while he was a sourdough in Alaska. The morning Scrooge and his sisters leave the McDuck castle, their father Fergus dies, joining his late wife and the rest of the Clan McDuck. 

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Scrooge has travelled back to Scotland to help his family save the McDuck castle. During his dramatic fight against the clan's nemesis, the Whiskervilles, Scrooge again gets some help from the ghost of Sir Quackly McDuck, however, this leads to Scrooge falling into the moat and becoming unconscious. He dreams that he has died and gone to "McDuck Heaven", where his forefathers are playing golf on clouds. They decide to give him another chance in life. When he wakes up, Scrooge can't get up as he is weighed down by a suit of armor. He uses his first coin to unscrew its bolts. He then chases off the Whiskervilles, and pays the overdue taxes on the castle with the ten thousand dollars he got from selling a mine, just before coming back to Scotland. At morning, Scrooge and his father looks out over Dismal Downs, where a rainbow is, and Scrooge decides to make his fortune again. 

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Abby wants very much to be in her own fairy tale. Elmo takes an interest in Abby's wish and tells her the story of "Alice in Wonderland". For a second Abby falls asleep and she opens her eyes to see that she is wearing a blue dress and blouse and Elmo has turned into a rabbit and is in a great hurry. Abby follows Elmo down a tunnel. At the bottom she loses her wand to Elmo, who disappears at the end of the tunnel. Abby notices there is a small door, but its locked. She finds the key to the door on a table that just appeared. She unlocks the door, but she's too big to fit through the little door. With that she closes, locks the door and puts the key back on the table. Then Abby notices there is a bottle that just appeared. Before Abby can drink it, the bottle tells her not to drink him, but say things that rhyme with 'drink'. Abby does and she shrinks to the right size to go through the door, but she recalls she locked it and left the key on the table, where it is out of her reach. Abby finds a cookie who tells her to say things that rhyme with 'eat'. Abby says so many rhymes, she grows pretty big, but she manages to balance her size, grab the key and shrink herself to a small size. Abby takes Bottle and Cookie with her as she unlocks the door and enters a flowerbed. Further in the flowerbed, Abby meets Counterpillar and his partner Little Rose-Ita, but does not want to join in their counting game. With Cookie's help, Abby restores herself to her regular size. Just then Elmo rushes past and Abby runs after him, passing Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, who mention, that they are actually not in this story. Abby bumps into a tree and hears some munching. She sees a pair of eyes and the Cheshire Cookie Cat appears. He points Abby in the direction of a tea party. At the tea party are seated the Mad Hatter, Elmo and Mousie. To Abby's surprise, the Hatter doesn't serve tea, but letters 'T' in the cups. The Hatter shows Abby his collection of hats. After that Abby asks Elmo for her wand, but with the hole in his pocket, he dropped it somewhere. The Cheshire Cookie Cat appears, guzzles up all the scones and cookies and scares away Mousie. Abby walks down a path in the search for her wand until she sees the path forks into four directions. As Elmo comes to talk with Abby, she sits down in despair of being lost in this wonderland. Soon Elmo rushes off to attend the King's Croquet Game. Abby follows him and finds a door in a tree. The door takes her to the messy castle of the king, "The Grouch of Cards". The king has Abby's wand thinking it's a new royal scepter. Abby tries to retrieve her wand, challenging the king to a game of croquet, but he cheats. Elmo protests at the king's decision to keep the wand. Before his grouchlings can throw out Abby and Elmo, they both use Cookie to grow large. They scare the grouchlings and the king away. Once Abby and Elmo restore themselves to their original size, Abby reclaims her wand. Abby is unable to magic herself back home, but Elmo reminds her she's still dreaming. Back in Sesame Street Elmo shakes Abby awake. Although Abby sort of got her wish to be in a fairy tale, she thinks she's better off being in a fairy tale when she's a little older. With that Abby and Elmo go off to play. 

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Pubescent Voula (Tania Palaiologou) and her five- year-old brother Alexandros (Michalis Zeke) want to see their father, whom they have never met before. Their mother tells them he lives in Germany and so Voula and Alexandros one day secretly leave their home to find him. They go to the Athens Railway Station and try to use the Germany Express, but are removed from the train for not having a ticket. A police officer takes them to a distant uncle, who convinces the officer that the children do not have a father in Germany. He informs him that their mother lied to them, to prevent them from knowing the truth: that they have different fathers and are simply the results of one-night stands. Although Voula and Alexandros eavesdrop on the conversation, they still believe their mother and believe the uncle is lying. When a blizzard suddenly hits the village and no more attention is paid to them, the children manage to escape. They continue their journey on foot and eventually meet a young man named Orestis (Stratos Tzortzoglou), who broke down with his bus. He offers to take them with him, and the children accept the offer. Orestis is the driver of a traveling theater troupe playing a piece about Greek history. Recently the troupe has been struggling with declining audience numbers, due to people searching for easier distraction. As the path of Orestis splits from theirs, the children leave the troupe and look for different means of transportation to Germany. They manage to find a truck driver (Vassilis Kolovos), willing to take them with him. Later, while Alexandros is asleep, the driver rapes Voula, and flees afterwards, shocked by his own actions. Alexandros and Voula soon reach another train station, where they again try to travel by train. When they spot the ticket inspector, they escape just in time before being caught. They bump into Orestis again, who takes them with him on his motorcycle. Meanwhile, Orestis' theater troupe breaks up and the members begin to sell their various requisites. Orestis takes Voula and Alexandros to an empty beach cafe and they walk the promenade with him. Suddenly, the children witness a huge marble hand held by a helicopter emerge from the sea. The index finger of the hand is broken off. Due to his impending military service, Orestis is forced to sell his motorcycle. He later meets the buyer again in a bar, and it is implied that he has sexual relations with him. Voula is disappointed in Orestis, having developed a crush in him herself, and the children leave again. Orestis later searches for them, and finds them on a deserted, newly constructed highway section. He takes Voula into his arms and starts consoling the crying girl: "The first time, it's always as if you're dying." They break up with Orestis again, this time for good. At another train station, a soldier gives Voula money to buy train tickets and the children again board a train for Germany. They exit shortly before the passport control at the border. Outside, they realize that the border is formed by a river, and use a small boat to cross it. Suddenly, shots are fired by border guards and a tree begins to emerge from the fog. As the fog begins to clear, Voula and Alexandros run for the tree and embrace it. 

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Rosie Richardson works in marketing at a publisher, when she starts dating Oliver Merchant, and falls in love with him. Oliver is the host of the TV show called SoftFocus where they tackle mostly cultural and political topics. Their relationship is formed by his erratic behaviour, like one day telling her he loves her and then not calling for days. When Rosie has to go to Nambula on a business trip, the poverty and general environment shock her into the realisation that she wants to spend her life doing something meaningful. So she breaks up with Oliver and leaves to go to Nambula and work at a refugee camp, organised by Sustain. Four years later, she is running the camp and feels attracted to a new doctor, Robert O'Rourke. Unfortunately, rumours about a locust invasion spread and about the shipping of food that will be late. So Rosie decides that she has to take matters into her own hands. She flies back to England and gets in touch with Oliver and his circle of famous friends to raise funds. After some convincing, the stars and Rosie fly to Nambula for a one-hour fundraising show. In the meantime, Oliver attempts reuniting with Rosie, who refuses him. After they handle some catastrophes, the show airs and is a full success. Food is delivered, the stars fly back and Rosie gets together with O'Rourke. 

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Prison officer Raymond Lohan prepares to leave for work; he cleans his wounded knuckles, checks his car for bombs, puts his uniform on, and ignores his comrades. Davey Gillen, a new IRA prisoner, arrives; he is categorised as a "non-conforming prisoner" for his refusal to wear the prison uniform. He is sent to his cell naked with only a blanket. His cellmate, Gerry Campbell, has smeared the walls with faeces from floor to ceiling as part of the no wash protest. Gerry's girlfriend sneaks a radio in by wrapping it and storing it in her vagina. Prison officers forcibly and violently remove the prisoners from their cells and beat them before pinning them down to cut their long hair and beards, grown as part of the no-wash protest. The prisoners resist, with prisoner Bobby Sands spitting into Lohan's face. He responds by punching Sands in the face and then swings again, only to miss and punch the wall, causing his knuckles to bleed. He cuts Sands' hair and beard; the men throw Sands in the bathtub and scrub him clean before hauling him away again. Later, the prisoners are taken out of their cells and given second-hand civilian clothing. The guards snicker as they hand the clothes to the prisoners who respond, after Sands' initial action, by tearing up the clothes and wrecking their cells. A large number of riot police enter the prison on a truck. The prisoners are hauled from their cells and forced to run the gauntlet between the lines of riot police, where they are beaten with batons by at least 10 men at once. Lohan and several of his colleagues then probe first their rectums and then their mouths, using the same pair of latex gloves for each man. Lohan visits his catatonic mother in a retirement home. He is shot in the back of the head by an IRA assassin and dies slumped onto his mother's lap. Sands meets Father Dominic Moran and discusses the morality of a hunger strike. Sands tells the priest about a trip to Donegal where he and his friends found a foal by a stream that had cut itself on the rocks and broken its back legs. Sands drowned the foal and tells the priest that although he got into trouble, he knew he had done the right thing by ending its suffering. He then says he knows what he is doing and what it will do to him but refuses to stand by and do nothing. Some time later, Sands is well into his hunger strike; he suffers from weeping sores, kidney failure, low blood pressure and stomach ulcers. While Sands lies in a bath, a larger orderly comes in to give his usual orderly a break. The larger orderly sits next to the tub and shows Sands his knuckles, which are tattooed with the letters "UDA". Sands tries to stand on his own and eventually does so with all his strength, staring defiantly at the UDA orderly. He then crumbles in a heap on the floor with no strength left to stand. The orderly carries him to his room. Sands' parents stay for the final days, his mother being at his side when Sands dies, 66 days after beginning the strike. A series of closing titles state that Sands was elected to the United Kingdom Parliament as MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone while he was on strike. Nine other men died with him during the seven-month strike before it was called off. 16 prison officers were killed by paramilitaries throughout the protests depicted in the film. Shortly afterwards, the British government conceded in one form or another to virtually all of the prisoners' five demands despite never officially granting political status. 

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Tom Llewyllyn and Somerset Lloyd-James (the latter by mistake) have been engaged to write the script of a movie version of the Odyssey, to be shot on Corfu. After some wrangling they ask Fielding Gray to help, since he is a man with knowledge of Greek and the classics in general. The shooting has many comic turns since the movie team wants to do a sexy story while the foundation supplying the money demands something more radical that will substantially alter the story. Left-wing actress Sasha Grimes, who is to be the foundation's "watcher" during the shoot, suggests, for example, that Odysseus give away his land to the poor. Gray works hard to keep the original story and even starts a sexual relationship with Grimes to be able to control her better. Max de Freville and his friend Lyki are also engaged in the movie and make visits during the shooting. They also bring Angela Tuck, suffering from terrible obesity in later years. When Angela, in a deal with Fielding, watches him having sex with Sasha, she has a heart attack and dies. Fielding, thinking about old age, is trying to blackmail producer Foxy Galahead for £50,000 to continue to keep Sasha Grimes under control. Galahead, Max, Lyki and director Jules frame Fielding and he is arrested by Earle Restarick during a trip to Zurich. Restarick and his thugs keeps Fielding prisoner in Athens and since the film team told them another story Restarick believes that Gray once again is digging in the things told in The Judas Boy. Restarick threatens to turn Fielding into a junkie to make him confess. Galahead throws a Christmas party for a number of guests, among them Lord Canteloupe, Somerset Lloyd-James and Captain Detterling. When Galahead brags to actress Elena about how he framed Fielding, she tells the three Englishmen at the party, and they decide to rescue Fielding. Canteloupe, infuriated by the thought that an Englishman be kept prisoner in a country of no importance (like Greece), bursts into the villa where Fielding is (officially) being nursed after a "mental breakdown" and takes him home to England. When Fielding arrives home Harriet is not there. At peace, he begins on a number of new commissions given him by Gregory Stern. Category:1972 British novels Category:Novels by Simon Raven Category:Fiction set in 1970 Category:Novels set in Greece Category:Corfu Category:Novels set on islands 

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The film begins with five children (Robert, Cyril, Jane, Anthea and The Lamb), whose father has gone to fight in World War I. Consequently, the children must meanwhile stay at their aunt and eccentric uncle's house with his unpleasant son, Horace. While exploring the house, Robert finds a locked door in the forbidden greenhouse and brings the other children. They manage to open the door, which leads them through a secret path to the beach surrounding the house. There they discover a large shelled creature, which reveals itself as a "psammead crustacean decapodlium wishasaurus," or sand fairy for short. The children, befuddled by this confusing name, refer to the creature simply as "It." It seems rather mischievous and Cyril doubts whether the children should trust him, but upon confirming that It can grant wishes, the children wish for all the house chores on their list to be done by magic. When they return to the house, they see dozens of copies of themselves doing the chores and wrecking the house in the attempt. Suddenly, everything disappears in clouds of golden dust. They are then forced to tidy up the mess themselves. When they return to It and ask why their clones disappeared, It explains that at sunset, all wishes fade away. The children blame It for the mess, but It responds by saying that wishes bring valuable lessons. The children need money to fix all the broken items, so they wish for buckets of gold and go off into town to buy some items. The children aren't able to buy anything because the owners will not accept gold, believing it is fake. They manage to purchase a car, having nothing else to do with the gold, and end up crashing it during a test drive. Mr. Peasemarsh, the owner, becomes furious and causes a scene with the children as the authorities and their aunt both appear on the scene. When Mr. Peasemarsh tries to reveal the children's "stolen gold", it vanishes just before he can show it to the officers, who take him away, believing he is out of his mind. Horace, meanwhile, is becoming suspicious of the children, and when they refuse to tell him what secret they're hiding, he manages to catch them in a room and locks it, telling them he won't let them out until they come clean. Robert, who was not with the rest when Horace trapped them, goes to It and wishes for wings so they can go off to France and find their father. The other children fly out the window when they discover their new wings, and Horace eventually decides to let them out only to discover them missing and the window open. While flying, the children are almost killed by heavy aircraft, but they just barely manage to escape danger. With sunset drawing near, they have no choice but to go home. During their return trip, their wings begin to fade, and it appears they will fall into the sea, but It's face appears among the clouds and blows on the children, sweeping them through the air back to shore. When the children's mother returns, the children learn that their father has gone missing. Robert talks to It that night, and falls asleep next to It on the beach. Horace, having followed Robert, captures It and brings him to his basement. The next morning, Robert confronts Horace but is unwilling to act, as Horace has his father's compass. Seeing that Horace plans to dissect It to find out how he works his magic, Robert suggests Horace wish for something instead. Interested in the idea, Horace wishes for his fossilized dinosaur egg to hatch. The children arrive in time to see Horace's dinosaur standing high above them and threatening to eat them. After trying to calm it down, It makes the dinosaur vanish. Shocked, Horace passes out, and Robert takes him to their mother, while the other children wish for their father to come home. He appears on the beach and talks to the children, but only minutes later he vanishes as sunset hits the beach. Robert, having just nearly missed returning to see him, is devastated. The children go to Horace, and they talk about what happened in the basement. Horace, surprised at the secret, becomes agreeable, and the children settle their differences, and agree to share the secret of Its existence together. On It's birthday, the children wish It a good future and prepare to return home. When their car breaks down, they are forced to stay in the house and Horace suggests a game of hide-and-seek. As Robert counts, his father appears. When Robert realizes that its really their father, he and the children are overjoyed, joined by their mother. Finally reunited with their father, the children prepare to go home. In a post credits scene, It contemplates a sequel "It and Five Children". 

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Woody Woodpecker's in bed reading a paper's “Business Opportunity” section. His eyes light up as he reads an ad: “Tourists!! Visit the Everglades and make big money in alligator bags.” Strolling through the “Everglade Estates,” Woody passes by an office in a large tree, whose sole occupant is a large, half-starved alligator. Business is really bad, and the alligator's only thought is of food. Seeing Woody pass by his office door, the alligator envisions a roasted woodpecker and makes plans to trap. Woody comes to a sign- “Walk In”- and in he walks, right into the alligator's mouth. It being somewhat damp inside the alligator, Woody lights a fire, which causes the alligator to choke and cough Woody right out into the open again. Woody then sees the alligator for the first time, and in his mind's eye, he sees the number of alligator bags that he could produce. A battle of wits ensues between Woody and the alligator so that he can begin making bags; the alligator wants a good square meal. Various and sundry methods are used by both to accomplish their purpose, but in the end, both Woody and the alligator are frustrated in their efforts, as neither can attain his desired aim. 

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The novel concerns the story of Count Dracula in England and is set before the events in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. 

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A young Israeli soldier, Cohen, is kidnapped by a group of Palestinian fighters who hold him as a hostage during the conflict. The 1982 FIFA World Cup happens to be on during the invasion, and their mutual love of association football, and in particular the Italy national football team, helps break down the barriers of nationalism and the historical baggage that the two bring. A kind of alliance is forged between the two men. Their relationship heads for a tragic ending as the Italian team, along with the goal scoring Paolo Rossi, make their march toward winning the 1982 FIFA World Cup Final. 

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The episode begins with a dream of Izzie, Cristina, Meredith, and George in the shower together. It's George's dream. Meredith refuses to go to work as she has this feeling that she will die. George and Izzie cannot get her out of bed, they have to call in Cristina. Once at the hospital, the premonition seems to have some validity. A trauma victim is brought in by the paramedics; one of them, Hannah (played by guest star Christina Ricci), has her hand inside the victim's chest cavity to stop the bleeding. As Alex soon discovers, though, Hannah's hand is not the only thing inside of this patient; after firing a homemade bazooka, he's also got a piece of unexploded ammunition inside of him. This places the hospital on Code Black, which essentially shuts down the surgical wing—save for the one operation that has already begun: Derek and Cristina operating on the brain of a man who happens to be Bailey's husband, while Bailey goes into labor and refuses to have her baby until her husband arrives. Bailey's husband got into a car accident trying to get to the hospital on time because Bailey was going into labor. Though the bomb squad, led by Dylan Young (played by guest star Kyle Chandler), wants to clear out the ORs of all unnecessary personnel, Derek, Cristina, and Meredith all insist on staying. After a chat with George about being "doers versus watchers" (they feel Cristina and Meredith are the "doers"), Izzie decides to ignite things with Alex—in the supply closet. Richard is trying his best to keep the hospital in some sort of order amidst the chaos, but he's having a tough time. In fact, things degrade quite quickly, most notably when an anesthesiologist leaves Hannah alone with the patient and the bomb while all the other doctors are strategizing with Dylan. Meredith finds Hannah having a nervous breakdown, about to pull her hand out and potentially put them all in danger (not to mention kill the patient, whose bleeding she is suppressing). Hannah does pull her hand out and flee the scene—but not before Meredith can take her place as the person with her hand in the patient. 

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Dr. Bailey is in labor, and without her husband Tucker Jones (who is undergoing neurosurgery) by her side, she refuses to push so she can give birth. George works with Addison to convince Bailey to have the baby. He finally gets through to Bailey by giving her the motivation that she needs, and ultimately he holds her while she delivers the baby. Izzie and Alex have sex again. Chief Richard Webber is under a lot of stress from everything that's been going on, and it is believed that he is having a heart attack, which lures his wife Adele to the hospital. Dr. Bailey's husband goes into cardiac arrest. Meredith finally removes the explosive from the patient, and Dylan, the leader of the bomb squad, carries it away. Meredith steps out of the operating room into the hallway, curiously watching Dylan walk away with the explosive, and at that moment, the bomb explodes, killing Dylan and a second bomb squad member. Meredith is knocked unconscious by the explosion. There is a revival of the "shower scene" from the first part, but with a more serious tone: the fully clothed Izzie and Cristina wash blood off of a stunned Meredith as George looks on. Both Dr. Bailey's husband, and the man who had the explosive embedded in his body, survive. At the end of the episode, Preston and Derek become friends, overcoming their initial rivalry in the series beginning, and call each other by their first names. Cristina says "I love you, too" to a sleeping Preston. Derek comes to visit Meredith and says, "You almost died today," and Meredith tells him that she can't remember their last kiss. Derek recalls the kiss for her, telling her that she "smelled like some kind of flower," which Meredith says was lavender, and then he leaves. 

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The novella features Brennan's supernatural detective Lucius Leffing and is set during the first World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island in 1975. 

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